Comparison of Piezoelectric Structural Damping Based on Velocity Controlled Switching and Pulse Width Modulation Switching Circuits

Abstract

Two novel piezoelectric damping techniques (VSD and PWMD) are compared in this paper to the traditional resonant shunt damping technique and SSDV technique. In VSD, the switching shunt circuit turns ON or OFF according to the polarity of the vibration velocity of the host structure to shift the piezoelectric voltage phase. An external voltage source is connected to enlarge the voltage amplitude across the piezoelectric element and to optimize the dissipated power. The PWM shunt technique not only can decrease the audible noises more efficiently but also ensure the stability of the control system with a constant voltage source. The theoretical and the experimental results show that the piezoelectric voltage can be adaptive to the vibration displacement by the pulse widths variation, so the PWMD can stay in stable state with a constant voltage source and can still provide a very good performance.