Piezoelectric Friction Damper Research Articles

Stiffness and damping tuning through using a piezoelectric friction damper and a layered structure

Abstract Vibration suppression is essential for enhancing the performance of mechanical systems, as it prevents structural damage and minimizes noise. Various methods, including passive, semi-active, and active approaches, have been developed to achieve this goal. Among these, friction dampers, primarily categorized as passive, are highly efficient in adjusting system damping and influencing energy dissipation. By modulating the normal force in the friction damper based on external force intensity, performance can be further enhanced. This study employs a piezoelectric actuator to regulate the normal force and introduces an analytical method along with finite element modeling to estimate the normal force in the friction damper. A layered structure is introduced as an additional mean to tune damping and stiffness. The performance of the semi-active piezoelectric friction damper is investigated in free and forced vibrations, including flexural and axial cyclic loads. Furthermore, the advantages of employing layered structures are investigated experimentally. Overall, the piezoelectric friction damper demonstrates effective energy dissipation during macroslip events. Nevertheless, in case of microslip, increasing the actuator voltage results in reduced damping and a marginal rise in stiffness.

Experimental and numerical simulation analysis of the dynamic characteristics of a new piezoelectric friction damper

Experimental and numerical simulation analysis of the dynamic characteristics of a new piezoelectric friction damper

Hysteretic behaviour and structural control performance of a piezoelectric friction damper

This study proposes a novel piezoelectric friction damper (PFD). Experiments and numerical simulations are carried out to investigate the mechanical model of the PFD, and the effects of loading speed, displacement amplitude, voltage, friction plate material, piezoelectric stack actuator dimensions, and spring parameters on the hysteretic characteristics of the PFD. Results show that the PFD attains a stable mechanical performance within the design loading speed and displacement amplitude. The piezoelectric stack actuator functioning as a friction control device, can increase friction by 54% at 120 V. In damper design, an appropriate increase of the constraint stiffness of the damper and a piezoelectric stack actuator with the same stiffness as the damper constraint can achieve greater output force, and the preload of the spring should be greater than the friction to prevent residual displacement. The PFD has better seismic performance for large-span cable dome structures than the traditional friction damper. The vertical peak displacement and acceleration reduction ratio reached 45.1% and 67.7% with PFDs, respectively. The PFD with semi-active control is suitable for large-span spatial structures.

Wind-Induced Response Control of a Television Transmission Tower by Piezoelectric Semi-Active Friction Dampers

To be a typical flexible structure with small damping, a high-rise television (TV) transmission tower is sensitive to wind excitations. The response control of TV transmission towers by semi-active friction dampers under strong external excitations is still very limited and the parametric study on control performance has not been systematically investigated. To this end, the semi-active control of a wind-excited TV transmission tower by piezoelectric friction dampers is conducted in this study. A fine finite element (FE) model of a real TV transmission tower is constructed and then a two-dimensional (2D) dynamic model is also established. The analytical model of a semi-active friction damper based on piezoelectric actuators is then established with damper stiffness considered. The equations of motion of the tower with friction dampers are then established. The local feedback control algorithm based on nonlinear Reid damping mechanisms is used to command piezoelectric friction dampers for wind-excited towers. A high-rise TV transmission tower in China is used to investigate the validity of the proposed semi-active control approach and compared with that of passive control. Furthermore, a detailed parametric investigation is conducted to examine the influence of gain coefficient, damper stiffness, hysteresis loops, damper force, and wind loading intensity on control efficacy. The analytical results indicate that piezoelectric friction dampers with optimal parameters are beneficial to the vibration mitigation of TV transmission towers under different wind loading intensities.

Vertical equipment isolation using piezoelectric inertial-type isolation system

Among anti-seismic technologies, base isolation is a very effective means of mitigating damage to structural and nonstructural components, such as equipment. However, most seismic isolation systems are designed for mitigating only horizontal seismic responses because the realization of a vertical isolation system (VIS) is difficult. The difficulty is primarily due to conflicting isolation stiffness demands in the static and dynamic states for a VIS, which requires sufficient rigidity to support the self-weight of the isolated object in the static state, but sufficient flexibility to lengthen the isolation period and uncouple the ground motion in the dynamic state. To overcome this problem, a semi-active VIS, called the piezoelectric inertia-type vertical isolation system (PIVIS), is proposed in this study. PIVIS is composed of a piezoelectric friction damper (PFD) and a leverage mechanism with a counterweight. The counterweight provides an uplifting force in the static state and an extra inertial force in the dynamic state; therefore, the effective vertical stiffness of PIVIS is higher in the static state and lower in the dynamic state. The PFD provides a controllable friction force for PIVIS to further prevent its excessive displacement. For experimental verification, a shaking table test was conducted on a prototype PIVIS controlled by a simple controller. The experimental results well agree with the theoretical results. To further investigate the isolation performance of PIVIS, the seismic responses of PIVIS were simulated numerically by considering 14 vertical ground motions with different characteristics. The responses of PIVIS were compared with those of a traditional VIS and a passive system (PIVIS without control). The numerical results demonstrate that compared with the traditional and passive systems, PIVIS can effectively suppress isolation displacement in all kinds of earthquake with various peak ground accelerations and frequency content while maintaining its isolation efficiency. The proposed system is particularly effective for nearfault earthquakes with long-period components, for which it prevents resonant-like motion.

Semi-active optimization control of space grid model with self-reset piezoelectric friction damper

Semi-active optimization control of space grid model with self-reset piezoelectric friction damper

Multiple analytical mode decompositions for nonlinear system identification from forced vibration

In this study, multiple analytical mode decompositions (M-AMD) are proposed to identify the parameters of nonlinear structures from forced vibration. For the time-varying damping (or stiffness) coefficient of a weakly-to-moderately nonlinear system, the slow-varying part is first estimated from the system responses and their Hilbert transforms, which is corrected with an adaptive low-pass filter referred to as analytical mode decomposition (AMD). The fast-varying part can then be identified from the responses together with the estimated slow-varying part, which is again corrected with the AMD. The computational efficiency and accuracy of the proposed M-AMD are demonstrated with a Duffing oscillator subjected to harmonic loading. The errors in estimation of all model parameters are less than 3% from uncontaminated displacement responses, which is more accurate compared with the results from Hilbert spectral analysis. Changes of the fast-varying stiffness part have been taken into account with high accuracy. The M-AMD algorithm is then validated with a ¼-scale, 3-story building with one piezoelectric friction damper under earthquake excitations. The parameters of such a semi-active damper are identified with less than 1% error on average.

Optimal placement of sensors and piezoelectric friction dampers in the pipeline networks based on nonlinear dynamic analysis

Experiences of past earthquakes demonstrate that pipeline systems have no proper performance when exposed to severe earthquakes. In this study, sensor and damper placement approaches are presented for doing reliable health monitoring and seismic retrofitting of the piping networks. Since most of the available sensor placement methods are based on modal analysis results, the authors propose a new scheme that relies on the nonlinearity which utilizes nonlinear time history analysis results, and genetic algorithm is selected to act as the methodology of optimization as well. The results demonstrate that the proposed optimal sensor configuration strategy is more accurate and efficient than the extended modal assurance criterion method. To assess the number of sensors, a sensitivity analysis is undertaken in which the number of sensors computed optimally by the proposed algorithm contains the least convergence error. In addition, the number of iterations and the time consumed in the proposed approach are considerably less than the extended modal assurance criterion method. Moreover, the efficiency of the proposed sensor placement scheme was compared with a new algorithm proposed by Sun and Büyüköztürk, named discrete artificial bee colony, where the simulation result demonstrates high accuracy of the proposed sensor configuration approach. The initial time history analysis results show the vulnerable points of the system, which destroyed due to the applied seismic waves. Hence, to enhance the seismic performance of the system, piezoelectric friction dampers are optimally placed, where it can be clearly seen that the optimal arrangement of piezoelectric friction dampers in the piping system can significantly decrease the seismic response.

Self-Tuning Fuzzy Control for Seismic Protection of Smart Base-Isolated Buildings Subjected to Pulse-Type Near-Fault Earthquakes

Pulse-type near-fault earthquakes have obvious long-duration pulses, so they can cause large deformation in a base-isolated system in contrast to non-pulse-type near-fault and far-field earthquakes. This paper proposes a novel self-tuning fuzzy logic control strategy for seismic protection of a base-isolated system, which can operate the control force of the piezoelectric friction damper against different types of earthquakes. This control strategy employs a hierarchic control algorithm, in which a higher-level supervisory fuzzy controller is implemented to adjust the input normalization factors and output scaling factor, while a sub-level fuzzy controller effectively determines the command voltage of the piezoelectric friction damper according to current level of earthquakes. The efficiency of the proposed control strategy is also compared with uncontrolled and maximum passive cases. Numerical results reveal that the novel fuzzy logic control strategy can effectively reduce the isolation system deformations without the loss of potential advantages of base-isolated system.

Fractional order PID control design for semi-active control of smart base-isolated structures: A multi-objective cuckoo search approach

Fractional order PID (FOPID) controllers are introduced as a general form of classical PID controllers using fractional calculus. As this controller provides good disturbance rejection and is robust against plant uncertainties it is appropriate for the vibration mitigation in structures. In this paper, an FOPID controller is designed to adjust the contact force of piezoelectric friction dampers for semi-active control of base-isolated structures during far-field and near-field earthquake excitations. A multi-objective cuckoo search algorithm is employed to tune the controller parameters. Considering the resulting Pareto optimal front, the best input for the FOPID controller is selected. For seven pairs of earthquakes and nine performance indices, the performance of the proposed controller is compared with those provided by several well-known control techniques. According to the simulation results, the proposed controller performs better than other controllers in terms of simultaneous reduction of the maximum base displacement and story acceleration for various types of earthquakes. Also, it provides acceptable responses in terms of inter-story drifts, root mean square of base displacements and floor acceleration. In addition, the evaluation of robustness for a stiffness uncertainty of ±10% indicates that the proposed controller gives a robust performance against such modeling errors.

Control of piezoelectric friction dampers in smart base-isolated structures using self-tuning and adaptive fuzzy proportional–derivative controllers

To adjust the contact force of piezoelectric friction dampers for a benchmark base-isolated structure, a self-tuning fuzzy proportional–derivative controller and an adaptive fuzzy proportional–derivative controller are developed. Considering three candidate signals, namely, the isolation displacement, isolation velocity, and roof acceleration, the best feedback signal for the self-tuning fuzzy proportional–derivative controller is selected based on the Pareto-optimal front. The performance of the self-tuning fuzzy proportional–derivative controller during both near-field and far-field earthquakes is enhanced using an adaptive fuzzy proportional–derivative controller, in which the output gain of the self-tuning fuzzy proportional–derivative controller is adaptively tuned according to the kind of entering earthquake. The control objective is to reduce the isolation system deformations without significant increase in superstructure accelerations during far-field and near-field earthquake excitations. Membership functions and fuzzy control rules are simultaneously tuned using a multi-objective cuckoo search algorithm. Considering 14 real-data earthquakes, simulation results show that the proposed controllers perform better than other reported control strategies in terms of simultaneous reduction of the maximum base displacement and superstructure accelerations. Also, they provide acceptable responses in terms of the inter-story drifts, root mean squared of base displacement, and the floor acceleration. Opposite to other reported control strategies, piezoelectric friction dampers controlled by the self-tuning fuzzy proportional–derivative controller and adaptive fuzzy proportional–derivative controller never enter the saturation area.

The smart PFD with LRB for seismic protection of the horizontally curved bridge

Recently, number of smart material are investigated and widely used in civil construction and other industries. Present study investigates the application of smart semi-active piezoelectric friction damper (PFD) made with piezoelectric material for the seismic control of the horizontally curved bridge isolated with lead rubber bearing (LRB). The main aim of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of hybrid system and to find out the optimum parameters of PFD for seismic control of the curved bridge. The selected curved bridge is a continuous three-span concrete box girder supported on pier and rigid abutment. The PFD is located between the deck and abutments or piers in chord and radial directions. The bridge is excited with four different earthquake ground motions with all three components (i.e. two horizontal and a vertical) having different characteristics. It is observed that the use of semi-active PFD with LRB is quite effective in controlling the response of the curved bridge as compared with passive system. The incorporation of the smart damper requiring small amount of energy in addition with an isolation system can be used for effective control the curved bridge against the dynamic loading.

Fuzzy Control for Seismic Protection of Semiactive Base-Isolated Structures Subjected to Near-Fault Earthquakes

This paper proposes a new fuzzy logic controller, which is designed for seismic protection of base-isolated structures utilizing piezoelectric friction damper against near-fault earthquakes for different ground sites. According to the elastic design spectrum that Eurocode 8 recommends, one 5% damped elastic design spectrum for Chi-Chi earthquake is proposed to generate artificial earthquakes of different ground sites. The proposed controller employs a hierarchic fuzzy control algorithm, in which a supervisory fuzzy controller governs a sublevel fuzzy controller by altering its input normalization factors according to current level of ground motion. In order to simultaneously reduce the base displacement and superstructure responses of the base-isolated structure during seismic excitations, genetic algorithm is employed to optimize the supervisory fuzzy controller and the preload of piezoelectric friction damper. The efficiency of the proposed controller is also compared with passive controller and a linear quadratic Gauss optimal controller. Numerical results show that the proposed fuzzy logic controller has favorable performance in mitigating the responses of the base-isolated structure.

A Semi‐active piezoelectric friction damper

SummaryThis research investigates the development of a semi‐active piezoelectric friction damper for controlling the seismic response of large‐scale structures. The proposed device is made of Duplex steel and leads to high friction capacity, which can be developed either in passive or semi‐active modes. For the later, piezoelectric actuators react against a stiff clamping system and apply a variable normal force on the multiple contact surfaces. To validate the design, a prototype, which contact surfaces were made of stainless steel and brake pad material, was built and tested in both friction modes. Moreover, an analytical model of the damper was developed to estimate the performance of the piezoelectric actuators within the clamping system. Experimental results showed that the proposed device achieves a force range factor of 1.9. These experimental results also compare well with those obtained from the analytical model of the damper. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Optimal PD/PID control of smart base isolated buildings equipped with piezoelectric friction dampers

Long-period pulses in near-field earthquakes lead to large displacements in the base of isolated structures. To dissipate energy in isolated structures using semi-active control, piezoelectric friction dampers (PFD) can be employed. The performance of a PFD is highly dependent on the strategy applied to adjust its contact force. In this paper, the seismic control of a benchmark isolated building equipped with PFD using PD/PID controllers is developed. Using genetic algorithms, these controllers are optimized to create a balance between the performance and robustness of the closed-loop structural system. One advantage of this technique is that the controller forces can easily be estimated. In addition, the structure is equipped with only a single sensor at the base floor to measure the base displacement. Considering seven pairs of earthquakes and nine performance indices, the performance of the closed-loop system is evaluated. Then, the results are compared with those given by two well-known methods: the maximum possive operation of piezoelectric friction dampers and LQG controllers. The simulation results show that the proposed controllers perform better than the others in terms of simultaneous reduction of floor acceleration and maximum displacement of the isolator. Moreover, they are able to reduce the displacement of the isolator systems for different earthquakes without losing the advantages of isolation.

Experimental Study about the Hysteretic Performance of the Pall-typed Piezoelectric Friction Damper

Because of its excellent energy dissipation capacity, friction damper has a wide application in engineering structure, while its use is restricted by constant frictional force. Piezoelectric ceramic actuator has electrochromic deformation ability, by the use of this advantage to combine piezoelectric ceramic actuator with friction damper to form piezoelectric friction damper. This paper conducts some experiments, firstly to study the force output performance, response time of ordinary piezoelectric friction damper, hysteretic behavior as well as its energy dissipation, secondly to study the performance of the Pall-typed piezoelectric friction damper which is consisted by Pall-typed frictional damper and piezoelectric ceramic actuator. The results show piezoelectric friction dampers have good force output capacity and they increase with the input voltage increases; the dampers have a quick response and a short response time; the hysteretic behaviors are stable, which almost has no relevance with loading frequency.

Seismic performance of benchmark highway bridge installed with piezoelectric friction dampers

Dynamic response of the benchmark highway bridge installed with semi-active piezoelectric friction dampers (PFDs) is investigated under six bidirectional earthquake ground motions. PFD utilises the response of the structure to develop control actions by adjusting frictional damping characteristics of the system. Conventional friction dampers abruptly fluctuate between stick-slip states. On the other hand, PFDs change the friction force continuously and smoothly. The study is based on the simplified lumped mass finite-element model of the 91/5 highway bridge, located in Southern California. The parameters affecting the performance of PFDs are gain factors, coefficient of friction and the preload on damper. Exhaustive studies are carried out to determine the most optimum values of these parameters. Eight dampers are installed at each deck-end and abutment junction (phase I). Additional four dampers are installed at the centre (phase II), at the junction of bent beam and piers of the bridge. In each case, th...

A Smart Base-Isolation Using Piezoelectric Friction Damper

A smart base-isolation system, composed of low damping bearings and piezoelectric friction damper is studied in this paper. The semi-active piezoelectric friction damper (PFD[1]) is proposed for control of peak dynamic response of seismic-excited structures. In the proposed PFD device, the friction force between two sliding plates is regulated by controlling the normal force using piezoelectricity across the damper, and its advantage is that its operation requires only minimal external power. A high efficient control algorithm is proposed for the semi-active control of the friction damper using a simple static output. The effectiveness of the PFD device and the control strategy in reducing the peak dynamic response of structures is investigated through an application to a 5-story base-isolated building. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed PFD device and the control strategy are effective in reducing the peak drift of rubber-bearings of the base-isolated building subject to earthquakes.

Semiactive Wind Response Control of 76-Story Benchmark Building with Smart Piezoelectric Friction Dampers

A smart piezoelectric friction damper (SPFD) is presented based on improved Pall friction dampers and its damping force model is analyzed. The wind-induced vibration control of Benchmark model using semi-active control strategies based on the classical LQR is studied. The results of simulation analysis show that the semi-active control effects of the standard wind-control model with SPFD is evident. Compared to uncontrolled structures, the wind-induced vibration responses of the controlled structures are effectively reduced. In addition, parameter optimization of the semi-active control system based on the limit Hrovat optimal control algorithm is carried out. The analysis shows that the robustness of the semi-active control system to the stiffness uncertainty of Benchmark Model is very good, but the robustness to the damping uncertainty is not so good.

The Design and Application of Piezoelectric Friction Damper with Self-Powered and Sensing Control System

To make the active and semi-active vibration control system in civil engineering get rid of external power supply, a new piezoelectric friction damper with self-power and sensing is designed in this paper and a semi-active control system based on this damper is presented. This system includes three key parts: a piezoelectric friction damper, a power generator based on the piezoelectric stack electro-mechanical energy conversion and a control circuit. It makes full use of the direct and converse piezoelectric effect. At the same time, it also overcomes the deficiency that the frictional force as damping can not be accurately desired in semi-active vibration control system. On the basis of it, the control equation of PFD is formulated. Numerical simulations for seismic protection of story isolation equipped with this system excited by a historical earthquake are conducted by MATLAB. Skyhook control is used to command a piezoelectric friction damper in the semi-active control. It is noticed that only one accelerometer is needed to monitor the response to realize the skyhook control, which greatly simplifies the classical semi-active vibration control system.