TORSIONAL VIBRATION CONTROL OF A FLEXIBLE BEAM USING LAMINATED PVDF ACTUATORS

This paper describes a theoretical and experimental development of a l aminated spatially distributed piezoelectric torsional vibration actua tor for a clamped-free cantilever beam. The strain energy transferred from a piezoelectric film actuator to a substructure is derived as a f unction of actuator strain only and is then used to calculate the indu ced strain in a substructure loaded in uniaxial extension/compression, bending and torsion. This transferred energy can be maximized by opti mizing the actuator/structure dimensions and material properties. An e xperimental cantilever beam was constructed to examine the first mode decay in torsion under the influence of the actuators. The theoretical and experimental decay histories of the first torsion mode decay indi cate a reduction in decay time for the controlled beam of greater than 10 times that of the uncontrolled beam. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limit ed