Energy Regenerative Vibration Control of Smart Structure Using Class D Amplifier (1st Report, Numerical Study Using Equivalent Circuit Model and Circuit Simulator)

Abstract

Active vibration control usually achieves higher performance compared to semi-active and passive vibration controls by consuming some amount of energy to drive actuator. However, the actuator of active control system absorbs energy from vibrating structure to suppress the vibration. In other words, the actuator regenerates energy from the vibrating structure. Especially, piezoelectric actuator often used in smart structures can regenerate energy effectively, because it has few internal energy loss. Energy consumption of active control is not caused by the actuator but caused by energy loss of conventional linear amplifier to drive the actuator. Recently, class D amplifier based on switching circuit has been utilized due to its high-efficiency. It can regenerate energy automatically from the load without loss under the ideal condition when the power consumption of the load is negative. Therefore, the energy regenerative active vibration control system can be realized by using the class D amplifier to drive the actuator. In this paper, we show the validity of the energy regenerative active vibration control of smart structure using the class D amplifier by numerical simulation of a smart cantilever beam with a piezoelectric actuator driven by a class D amplifier.