Vibration damping by maximizing the reactive power of an inertial shaker

Abstract

Passive and active vibration control is required to reduce noise, prevent damage, or maintain the stability of a structure. Active measures are of particular importance due to their narrowband performance. They use inverted or phase shifted signals to shift the kinetic energy of the vibrating structure to frequency bands where it does not have a negative effect on the sound emission and auditory sensation. In this paper, an active-mass-damper is realized by an inertial shaker as actuator by controlling its current. The power that the active-mass-damper transmits to the vibrating structure is measured by the transmitted force and the acceleration of the point of force application. The control system maximizes the reactive power and, therefore, acts as an active-mass-damper to minimize the vibration of a structure. An arbitrary structure represented by a single DOF mass-spring-damper system which is excited by a modal shaker. An electromechanical model of the inertial shaker is formulated, and a control system is designed. The simulation is validated with laboratory experiments. The experimental results show that the vibration of the structure can be minimized by increasing the reactive power transmitted by the active-mass-damper to the structure.