STUDY ON VIBRATION CHARACTERISTICS OF PZT ACTUATED MILDSTEEL AND ALUMINIUM CANTILEVER BEAMS (original) (raw)

Considerable attentions have been devoted recently to active vibration control using smart materials as actuators. This study presents an active vibration control technique applied to a smart beam. The smart beam consists of Aluminum and mild steel beams modeled in cantilevered configuration with surface bonded piezoelectric (lead-Zirconium-Titanate-PZT) patches .The natural frequency of smart beams were found using finite element code for first four modes by varying the location of actuator from the fixed end of the structure, and it has good agreement with analytically found natural frequency. An experimental apparatus has been developed to study the vibration suppression of the smart beams. The free vibration of the mild steel and aluminum beams were carried out by varying the initial displacement and input voltage to the PZT in order to find out the settling time and the damping factor of both of the beams. The results shows that the aluminium beam will have little more damping effect than mild steel leads to less settling time of aluminum.