Vibration Control of Structures using Piezoelectric Material

Abstract

Structures subjected to dynamic loading leads to vibration in the structure. Sus- tained vibrations have potential to cause failure of the structure. Problem of vi- bration is found to be more in exible structure. Problem of vibration is found to be more in exible structural system like Antenna structure, Aircraft etc. and many time caused instability in it. Therefore, it is important to suppress vibration of structures by adding damping in to it over and above inherent damping. Many researcher has attempted this problem and developed various strategies like Passive, Semi-Active and Active to control vibrations. However, light and exible systems active strategies to control vibrations sufered problems of instability due to power gain. But, many literature showed for such system passive and semi-active strate- gies to control vibration works better. Apart, in past decade many researchers has showed effectiveness of smart materials like piezoelectric, Magno-rheological, Elec- trostatic, Shape Memory Alloys etc. in controlling vibration of structural system. In this present study effficiency of piezo ceramic to control vibration of cantilever structure is considered piezoelectric material in powder form SP-4 and SP-5A is used. Piezoelectric material mixed with Epoxy Hardener is in volume fraction of 60%, 65% and 70%. The cantilever structure is coated with paste of piezoelectric powder and Epoxy-Hardener manually and is subjected to free vibration. The substrate material used for coating is aluminium. In order to establish the effeciency of piezoelectric powder to suppress vibration, a comparison is made among bare specimen and coated specimen. Apart, cantilever structure made up of aluminum is coated with piezoelectric powder through Powder Coating technique to provide smooth coating surface. All bare as well as coated specimen is tested through free vibration test and response of system is captured using Accelerometer, DAQ and computer system. Coating with PZT powder on light exible structures shows significant damping effects. Damping increases 11% when coating is performed using SP-4 PZT powder and damping increases 10% with coating SP-5A PZT powder applied on aluminum substrate manually. There is not much increment in damping when SP-4 and SP-5A PZT powder both are mixed and applied manually on aluminum substrate. Damping increases 21% when Epoxy Powder-I coating is applied and damping increased 28% Epoxy Powder-II coating is applied, PZT Powder Coating shows 5% increase in damping.