Experimental implementation of a self-tuning control system for decentralised velocity feedback

Simulations have previously shown that, for broadband excitation, adjusting the gain of a local velocity feedback loop to maximise their absorbed power also tends to minimise the kinetic energy of the structure under control. This paper describes an experimental implementation of multiple velocity feedback loops on a flat panel, whose gains can be controlled automatically by an algorithm that maximises their local absorbed power. Taking care to remove excessive phase shift in the control loop allows a stable feedback gain that is high enough to experimentally demonstrate the transition in control action between optimum damping and pinning of the structure. A simple search algorithm is then used to adapt the feedback gains of two control loops to maximise their local absorbed powers, thus demonstrating self-tuning. By measuring the power absorbed by each of these loops and also estimation of the kinetic energy of the plate from velocity measurements for a wide range of the two feedback gains, it is shown that not only does the adaptive algorithm converge to a set of feedback gains that maximise total power absorbed by the two feedback loops, but also that this set of feedback gains is very close to those that minimise the measured kinetic energy of the panel.     

Self-tuning control systems of decentralised velocity feedback

This paper is concerned with decentralised velocity feedback for the control of vibration on a flexible structure. Previous studies have shown that a direct velocity feedback loop with a collocated force actuator produces a damping action. Multiple velocity feedback control loops thus reduce the vibration and sound radiation of structures at low frequency resonances, where the response is controlled by damping. However, if the control gains are too high, so that the response of the structure at the control point is close to zero, the feedback control loops will pin the panel at the control positions and thus no damping action is generated. Therefore, in order to maximise the active damping effect, the feedback gains have optimum values and the loops need to be properly tuned.In this paper, a numerical investigation is performed to investigate the possibility of self-tuning the feedback control gains to maximise the power absorbed by the control loops and hence maximise the active damping. The tuning principle is first examined for a single feedback loop for different excitation signals. The tuning of multiple control loops is then considered and the implementation of a practical tuning algorithm is discussed.     

Comparison of decentralized velocity feedback control for thin homogeneous and stiff sandwich panels using electrodynamic proof-mass actuators

Theoretical and experimental work is presented to compare the effect of decentralised velocity feedback control on thin homogeneous and sandwich panels. The decentralised control system consists of five control units, which are composed of a proof-mass electrodynamic actuator with an accelerometer underneath its footprint and an analogue controller. The stability of the feedback loops is analysed by considering the sensor-actuator open-loop frequency response function of each control unit and the eigenvalues of the fully populated matrix of open-loop frequency response functions between the five sensors and five actuators. The control performance is then analysed in terms of the time-averaged total kinetic energy and total sound power radiated by the two panels. The results show that for a stiff sandwich panel higher stable feedback gains can be implemented than on a thin homogeneous panel of comparable weight per unit area. Moreover the implementation of decentralised velocity feedback can offset some of the undesirable sound transmission properties of lightweight sandwich structures by efficiently reducing structural vibration and sound power radiation in the mid audio frequency range.     

Active vibroacoustic control with multiple local feedback loops

When multiple actuators and sensors are used to control the vibration of a panel, or its sound radiation, they are usually positioned so that they couple into specific modes and are all connected together with a centralized control system. This paper investigates the physical effects of having a regular array of actuator and sensor pairs that are connected only by local feedback loops. An array of 4 x 4 force actuators and velocity sensors is first simulated, for which such a decentralized controller can be shown to be unconditionally stable. Significant reductions in both the kinetic energy of the panel and in its radiated sound power can be obtained for an optimal value of feedback gain, although higher values of feedback gain can induce extra resonances in the system and degrade the performance. A more practical transducer pair, consisting of a piezoelectric actuator and velocity sensor, is also investigated and the simulations suggest that a decentralized controller with this arrangement is also stable over a wide range of feedback gains. The resulting reductions in kinetic energy and sound power are not as great as with the force actuators, due to the extra resonances being more prominent and at lower frequencies, but are still worthwhile. This suggests that an array of independent modular systems, each of which included an actuator, a sensor, and a local feedback control loop, could be a simple and robust method of controlling broadband sound transmission when integrated into a panel.     

Active modal control simulation of vibro-acoustic response of a fluid-loaded plate

Active modal control simulation of vibro-acoustic response of a fluid-loaded plate is presented. The active modal control of the vibro-acoustic response is implemented using piezoelectric actuators/sensors. The active modal damping is added to the coupled system via negative velocity feedback. The feedback gain between the piezoelectric actuators/sensors for the modal control is obtained using the in-vacuo modal matrix and the incompressible fluid-loaded modal matrix. The modal control performance of structural vibration and acoustic radiation of a baffled plate is numerically studied. It is shown that the proposed method increases the modal damping ratio and achieves reduction in the mean square velocity and the sound power for given modes of the fluid-loaded plate.     

Active vibration control using an inertial actuator with internal damping

Collocated direct velocity feedback with ideal point force actuators mounted on structures is unconditionally stable and generates active damping. When inertial actuators are used to generate the control force, the system can become unstable even for moderate velocity feedback gains due to an additional -180 degree phase lag introduced by the fundamental axial resonant mode of the inertial actuator. In this study a relative velocity sensor is used to implement an inner velocity feedback loop that generates internal damping in a lightweight, electrodynamic, inertial actuator. Simulation results for a model problem with the actuator mounted on a clamped plate show that, when internal relative velocity feedback is used in addition to a conventional external velocity feedback loop, there is an optimum combination of internal and external velocity feedback gains, which, for a given gain margin, maximizes vibration reduction. These predictions are validated in experiments with a specially built lightweight inertial actuator.     

Finite element modelling of piezolaminated smart structures for active vibration control with distributed sensors and actuators

Finite element modelling of laminated structures with distributed piezoelectric sensor and actuator layers and control electronics is considered in this paper. Beam, plate and shell type elements have been developed incorporating the stiffness, mass and electromechanical coupling effects of the piezoelectric laminates. The effects of temperature on the electrical and mechanical properties and the coupling between them are also taken into consideration in the finite element formulation. The piezoelectric beam element is based on Timoshenko beam theory. The plate/shell element is a nine-noded field-consistent element based on first order shear deformation theory. Constant-gain negative velocity feedback, Lyapunov feedback as well as a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) approach have been used for active vibration control with the structures subjected to impact, harmonic and random excitations. The influence of the pyroelectric effects on the vibration control performance is also investigated. The LQR approach is found to be more effective in vibration control with lesser peak voltages applied in the piezo actuator layers as in this case the control gains are obtained by minimizing a performance index. The application of these elements in high-performance, light-weight structural systems is highlighted.     

The design of an optimal viscous damper for a bridge stay cable using energy-based approach

An energy-based method is developed in the present paper to evaluate the damping property of a stay cable when transversely attached to a viscous damper. The overall increase of the cable damping offered by the external damper is determined by examining the time history of the kinetic energy in the damped cable. The concept of kinetic energy decay ratio is introduced as a key index to evaluate the effectiveness of a damper design in suppressing cable vibration. Compared to earlier studies, the proposed energy-based approach has no restrictions on the damper location. In addition, the flexural rigidity and sag extensibility of the cable are included in the formulation. Numerical simulation of free vibration of a damped stay cable is conducted using ABAQUS. To assist the design process, a set of damping estimation curves, which directly relate a damper design with the corresponding equivalent structural damping in a damped cable are developed for the practical parameter ranges of bridge stay cables. A number of numerical examples are presented. The validity and accuracy of the proposed method and damping estimation curves are verified by comparing with other studies. Results show that the energy-based approach developed in the present study is effective and efficient in determining the overall damping property of a cable-damper system, particularly in the preliminary stage of a damper design. In addition, the flexible applications of the developed damping estimation curves to damper design are demonstrated through these examples.     

Active control of cylindrical shell with magnetostrictive layer

This paper analyses the damping characteristics of a titanium shell with a magnetostrictive layer bonded to it. The magnetostrictive layer produces an actuating force required to control vibration in the shell, based on a negative velocity feedback control law. The control input is the current to the solenoid surrounding the shell. In the present study, a finite element formulation, physically consistent with the problem has been developed. Vibration reduction in the shell by changing the position of the magnetostrictive layer and its current carrying actuating coil pair along the shell is investigated.     

Vibration of L-shaped plates under a deterministic force or moment excitation: a case of statistical energy analysis application

Analytical and closed form solutions are presented in this paper for the vibration response of an L-shaped plate under a point force or a moment excitation. Inter-relationships between wave components of the source and the receiving plates are clearly defined. Explicit expressions are given for the quadratic quantities such as input power, energy flow and kinetic energy distributions of the L-shaped plate. Applications of statistical energy analysis (SEA) formulation in the prediction of the vibration response of finite coupled plate structures under a single deterministic forcing are examined and quantified. It is found that the SEA method can be employed to predict the frequency averaged vibration response and energy flow of coupled plate structures under a deterministic force or moment excitation when the structural system satisfies the following conditions: (1) the coupling loss factors of the coupled subsystems are known; (2) the source location is more than a quarter of the plate bending wavelength away from the source plate edges in the point force excitation case, or is more than a quarter wavelength away from the pair of source plate edges perpendicular to the moment axis in the moment excitation case due to the directional characteristic of moment excitations. SEA overestimates the response of the L-shaped plate when the source location is less than a quarter bending wavelength away from the respective plate edges owing to wave coherence effect at the plate boundary.     

Optimisation of a velocity feedback controller to minimise kinetic energy and maximise power dissipation

In this study the active vibration control of a structure modelled as a single degree of freedom system and excited by a white noise force is considered. The control system consists of an inertial actuator driven with a signal proportional to the velocity of the structure under control measured by an ideal collocated sensor. The optimisation of the physical and control parameters of the control system such as the internal damping of the actuator, its natural frequency and the feedback gain of the controller are considered such that either the kinetic energy of the host structure is minimised or the power dissipated by the control system is maximised. This type of control system is only conditionally stable therefore a stability condition has to be satisfied by the optimisation process. The paper shows that the two optimisation criteria are equivalent.     

Rectangular plate with velocity feedback loops using triangularly shaped piezoceramic actuators: experimental control performance

This paper presents experimental results on the implementation of decentralized velocity feedback control on a new smart panel in order to produce active damping. The panel is equipped with 16 triangularly shaped piezoceramic patch actuators along its border and accelerometer sensors located at the top vertex of the triangular actuators. The primary objective of this paper is to demonstrate the vibration and sound radiation control using the new smart panel. Narrow frequency band experimental results highlight that the 16 control units can produce reductions up to 15 dB at resonance frequencies between 100 and 700 Hz in terms of both structural vibration and sound power radiation.     

Multifunctional design of inertially-actuated velocity feedback controllers

The vibration of a structure can be controlled using either a passive tuned mass damper or using an active vibration control system. In this paper, the design of a multifunctional system is discussed, which uses an inertial actuator as both a tuned mass damper and as an element in a velocity feedback control loop. The natural frequency of the actuator would normally need to be well below that of the structure under control to give a stable velocity feedback controller, whereas it needs to be close to the natural frequency of a dominant structural resonance to act as an effective tuned mass damper. A compensator is used in the feedback controller here to allow stable feedback operation even when the actuator natural frequency is close to that of a structural mode. A practical example of such a compensator is described for a small inertial actuator, which is then used to actively control the vibrations both on a panel and on a beam. The influence of the actuator as a passive tuned mass damper can be clearly seen before the feedback loop is closed, and broadband damping is then additionally achieved by closing the velocity feedback loop.     

Active control of geometrically nonlinear transient vibration of composite plates with piezoelectric actuators

In this paper, the incremental finite element equations for geometric non-linear analysis of piezoelectric smart structures are developed using a total Lagrange approach by using virtual velocity incremental variational principles. A four-node first order shear plate element model with reduced and selective integration is also developed. Geometrically non-linear transient vibration response and control of plates with piezoelectric patches subjected to pulse loads are investigated. Active damping is introduced on the plates by coupling a self-sensing and negative velocity feedback algorithm in a closed control loop. The numerical results show that piezoelectric actuators can introduce significant damping and suppress transient vibration effectively. The effects of the number and locations of the piezoelectric actuators on the control system are also discussed.     

Time-domain simulation of damped impacted plates. I. Theory and experiments

A time-domain formulation for the flexural vibrations in damped rectangular isotropic and orthotropic plates is developed, in order to investigate transient excitation of plates by means of sound synthesis. The model includes three basic mechanisms of damping (thermoelasticity, viscoelasticity and radiation) using a general differential operator. The four rigidity factors of the plate are modified by perturbation terms, each term corresponding to one specific damping mechanism. The first damping term is derived from the coupling between the thermoelastic stress-strain relations and the heat diffusion equation. The second term is obtained from the general differential formulation of viscoelasticity. The third term is obtained through a Pade approximation of the damping factor which governs the coupling of the plate with the surrounding air. The decay factors predicted by the model reproduce adequately the dependence on both dimensions and frequency of the decay factors measured on rectangular plates of various sizes and thicknesses made of four different materials (aluminum, glass, carbon fiber, and wood). The numerical resolution of the complete problem, including initial and boundary conditions, and the comparison between real and simulated sounds are presented in a companion paper.     

Energy flow model for thin plate considering fluid loading with mean flow

Energy Flow Analysis (EFA) has been developed to predict the vibration energy density of system structures in the high frequency range. This paper develops the energy flow model for the thin plate in contact with mean flow. The pressure generated by mean flow affects energy governing equation and power reflection–transmission coefficients between plates. The fluid pressure is evaluated by using velocity potential and Bernoulli's equation, and energy governing equations are derived by considering the flexural wavenumbers of a plate, which are different along the direction of flexural wave and mean flow. The derived energy governing equation is composed of two kinds of group velocities. To verify the developed energy flow model, various numerical analyses are performed for a simple plate and a coupled plate for several excitation frequencies. The EFA results are compared with the analytical solutions, and correlations between the EFA results and the analytical solutions are verified.     

Base impedance of velocity feedback control units with proof-mass electrodynamic actuators

Control units comprising a proof-mass electrodynamic actuator and accelerometer-sensor pair with a time integrator and fixed gain controller are an effective way to implement velocity feedback control on thin flexible structures. These control units produce active damping provided the fundamental resonance frequency of the actuators is well below that of the structure under control. Control stability limits arise from the actuators fundamental resonances which introduce a 180° phase lag in the sensor-actuator frequency response functions, thus causing the feedback loops to be only conditionally stable. In contrast to previous studies, this paper discusses the response of a control unit with electrodynamic proof-mass actuator in terms of the open- and closed-loop base impedance that it exerts on the structure. This allows for a straight-forward physical interpretation of both stability and control performance. Experimental and simulation results show that the base impedance can be described as the sum of passive and active frequency response functions, where the active part of the control unit response depends on the actuator electromechanical response and also on the response function of the analogue controller circuit. The results show that the base impedance formulation can be effectively used to investigate new designs of both the actuator and electronic controller in order to optimise the stability and performance properties of the control unit.     

Global damping of noise or vibration fields with locally synthesized controllers

A locally synthesized controller (LSC) is one that uses a local feedback signal in a noise or vibration field (VF) to synthesize the actuation signal. The global damping of a VF by available LSCs requires sensor-actuator collocation. This study presents a LSC for the global damping of a VF without requiring sensor-actuator collocation, which is important to noise control applications where a sensor may be placed away from an actuator to avoid the near field effects. It is proven that the LSC damps the entire VF instead of just a local feedback loop. This is different from other LSCs that may control local feedback loops without damping the VFs. A decentralized control law is presented here to extend the LSC to a decentralized damping system using multiple actuators.     

Flexural wave suppression by an acoustic metamaterial plate

A new acoustic metamaterial plate is presented for the purpose of suppressing flexural wave propagation. The metamaterial unit cell is made of a plate with a lateral local resonance (LLR) substructure which consists of a four-link mechanism, two lateral resonators and a vertical spring. The substructure presents negative Young’s modulus property in certain frequency range. We show theoretically and numerically that two large low-frequency band gaps are obtained with different formation mechanisms. The first band gap is due to the elastic connection with the foundation while the second is induced by the lateral resonances. Besides, four-link mechanisms can transform the flexural wave into the longitudinal vibration which stimulates the lateral resonators to vibrate and to generate inertial forces for absorbing the energy and thus preventing the wave propagation. Frequency response function shows that damping from the vertical spring has little influence on the band gaps, although the damping can smooth the variation of frequency response (see the dotted line in Figs. 10 and 11). Increasing the damping of the lateral resonators may broaden the second band gap but deactivate its effect. This study provides guidance for flexibly tailoring the band characteristics of the metamaterial plate in noise and vibration controls.     

Active vibration control of beam structures using acceleration feedback control with piezoceramic actuators

In this study, the active vibration control of clamped–clamped beams using the acceleration feedback (AF) controller with a sensor/moment pair actuator configuration is investigated. The sensor/moment pair actuator is a non-collocated configuration, and it is the main source of instability in the direct velocity feedback control system. First, the AF controller with non-collocated sensor/moment pair actuator is numerically implemented for a clamped–clamped beam. Then, to characterize and solve the instability problem of the AF controller, a parametric study is conducted. The design parameters (gain and damping ratio) are found to have significant effects on the stability and performance of the AF controller. Next, based on the characteristics of AF controllers, a multimode controllable single-input single-output (SISO) AF controller is considered. Three AF controllers are connected in parallel with the SISO architecture. Each controller is tuned to a different mode (in this case, the second, third and fourth modes). The design parameters are determined on the basis of the parametric study. The multimode AF controller with the selected design parameters has good stability and a high gain margin. Moreover, it reduces the vibration significantly. The vibration levels at the tuned modes are reduced by about 12 dB. Finally, the performance of the AF controller is verified by conducting an experiment. The vibration level of each controlled mode can be reduced by about 12 dB and this value is almost same as the theoretical result.