Modal control of smart shells by optimized discretely distributed piezoelectric transducers

Abstract

Active vibration control of the shell structures with discretely distributed piezoelectric sensor and actuator patches is investigated. The quasi-modal sensor is developed to estimate the dominant mode coordinates of the shell from the outputs of the sensor patches, and a criterion for finding the optimal locations and sizes of the sensor elements is given by minimizing the observation spillover. The quasi-modal actuator is also designed to actuate the designated modes by means of modulating the voltage distribution of the piezoelectric actuator patches, and a criterion for optimal placement of the actuator patches is presented based on the energy and control spillover consideration. Furthermore, the compensators are employed to filter out the residual components with high frequencies from the estimated modal coordinates. Based on the quasi-modal sensor and quasi-modal actuator, the independent modal control is performed approximately to control the vibration of smart shells. The simulation examples show that the vibration of the shells can be controlled effectively by using the presented method.