Experimental evaluation of active force vibration control of a flexible structure using smart material

Active Vibration Control (AVC) has recently emerged as a superior technique in vibration suppression of flexible structures. Due to the complexity of the dynamics system of flexible structures, the development of its vibration control algorithm is a very challenging aspect. This paper describes the development and experimental evaluation of an Active Force Control (AFC) and high gain active vibration controller (AVC-P) strategies for vibration control of the flexible structure. The performance of both algorithms in vibration suppression of flexible structure is evaluated experimentally utilizing smart materials as the sensor and actuator of the system. The dynamic model of the flexible structure system considering the collocated placement of the piezoelectric sensor and actuator is derived within the LabVIEW environment in both time and frequency domains. The first five modes of vibration were obtained and the attenuation achieved at these modes of vibration using both AFC and AVC-P methodologies were tabulated. The experimental results indicated comparable result of AFC algorithm in comparison to AVC-P in the vibration suppression of the flexible structure.