Modeling piezoceramic transducer hysteresis in the structural vibration control problem

Abstract

To appropriately assess, compensate for and/or potentially utilize piezoceramic transducer nonlinearities, reversible and irreversible, in the structural vibration control problem, a suitable theoretical framework is needed. In this study such a framework is developed and experimentally evaluated for a basic pedagogical structural vibration control system, the simply supported beam with a monolithic piezoceramic wafer bonded to it that can be both electrically shunted and/or driven by an external electric source. A constitutive model for the piezoceramic (PZT) wafer by itself is formulated that incorporates reversible (higher order polynomial) and irreversible (hysteretic) dielectric nonlinearity. An identification scheme for the model is validated experimentally. The nonlinear PZT model is then integrated into the coupled dynamic equations of the overall system consisting of the simply supported beam and the electrically shunted PZT wafer bonded to the beam. The theoretical system model is then evaluated by comparing its predictions to experimental results. Energy loss and transduction mechanisms in the integrated structural system are investigated.