Passive and Active Vibration Control With Piezoelectric Fiber Composites

The possibility of dissipating mechanical energy with piezoelectric fiber composites (PFC) is investigated. The techniques for manufacturing an active beam with integrated (PFC) are presented and applied to a cantilevered beam experiment. We evaluated experimentally the performances of the active beam in passive energy dissipation. Three vibration cases were analysed: electrodes of the PFCs are (i) in open circuit, (ii) short circuit and (iii) shunted with electrical impedance designed to dissipate the electrical energy, which has been converted from the beam mechanical energy by the PFCs. Then we presented numerical models to analyze the vibration of active beams connect to electrical impedance. The proposed models point out with an accurate order of magnitude the change in vibration amplitude of the analysed beam. Hence we validate experimentally and numerically the concept of vibration control with PFCs and point out some new contributions of PFCs in active or passive damping. (authors)