3 - Feedback Control.pdfVIP

3 Feedback Control 3.1 Introduction The objective of active vibration control is to reduce the vibration of a mechanical system by automatic modification of the systems structural response. An active vibration control system can take many forms, but the important components of any such system are a sensor to detect the vibration , an electronic controller to suitably manipulate the signal from the detector and an actuator which influences the mechanical response of the system . The types of actuator used in active vibration control can be broadly classified into those which are fully-active and those which are semi-active. Fully-active actuators are able to supply mechanical power to the system. Examples are electromagnetic shakers, piezoelectric ceramics and films, magnetostrictive and electrohydraulic devices. Actuators such as these can be used to generate a secondary vibrational response in a linear mechanical system, which could reduce the overall response by destructive interference with the original response of the system, caused by the primary source of vibration. Semi-active actuators behave as essentially passive elements in that they can only store or dissipate energy. Their use in active control stems from the fact that their passive mechanical properties can be adjusted by the application of a control signal and such systems are thus sometimes called adaptive. Semi-active actuators can be constructed using electrorheological fluids or shape memory alloys, for example, as discussed in Chapter 5. In this chapter we are concerned exclusively with active vibration control systems which employ fully-active actuators. We are particularly concerne