Active aeroelastic flutter analysis and vibration control of supersonic beams using the piezoelectric actuator/sensor pairs

The active vibration control of all kinds of structures by using the piezoelectric material has been extensively investigated. In this paper, the active aeroelastic flutter characteristics and vibration control of supersonic beams applying the piezoelectric material are studied further. The piezoelectric materials are bonded on the top and bottom surfaces of the beams to act as the actuator and sensor so that the active aeroelastic flutter suppression for the supersonic beams can be conducted. The supersonic piston theory is adopted to evaluate the aerodynamic pressure. Hamilton's principle with the assumed mode method is used to develop the dynamical model of the structural systems. By using the standard eigenvalue methodology, the solutions for the complex eigenvalue problem are obtained. A negative velocity feedback control strategy is used to obtain active damping. The aeroelastic flutter bounds are calculated and the active aeroelastic flutter characteristics are analyzed. The impulse responses of the structural system are obtained by using the Houbolt numerical algorithm to study the active aeroelastic vibration control. The influences of the non-dimensional aerodynamic pressure on the active flutter control are analyzed. From the numerical results it is observed that the aeroelastic flutter characteristics of the supersonic beams can be significantly improved and that the aeroelastic vibration amplitudes can be remarkably reduced, especially at the flutter points, by using the piezoelectric actuator/sensor pairs which can provide an active damping. Within a certain value of the feedback control gain, with the increase of it, the flutter aerodynamic pressure (or flutter velocity) can be increased and the control results are also improved