Semi-active piezoelectric structural damping adjustment and enhancement by synchronized switching on energy injection technique

Abstract

Synchronized switch damping (SSD) principle and derived techniques are a classical semi-active vibration control method based on piezoelectric elements. This paper presents a novel energy injection based SSD technique which has better effect of vibration reduction but with simpler implementation of electronic circuitry. The proposed circuit is composed of a flyback transformer, an ordinary low voltage source and two kinds of synchronized switches. Through controlling the synchronized switches, the electrical energy is extracted from the voltage source to the transformer, and then injected to the piezoelectric elements, increasing the piezoelectric voltage as needed. Moreover, this injection energy can be easily adjusted by changing the duty cycle of the corresponding switch control signal. The operation principle of this technique is introduced, the analytical expression of vibration attenuations is also derived for a typical electromechanical model. Finally, theoretical predictions confirmed by experimental results show that the proposed SSD technique provides an adaptive structural damping and enhances the effect of vibration attenuation.