Experimental study and numerical simulation of active vibration control on high order mode of piezoelectric flexible beam

To reduce effective load and lower the launch cost, many light-weight flexible structures are employed in spacecraft. The research of active control on flexible structural vibration is very important in spacecraft design. Active vibration control on a flexible beam with piezoelectric pieces bonded in surface is investigated experimentally using independent modal space control method, which is able to control the first three modes independently. A comparison between the system responses before and after control indicates that the modal damping of flexible structure is greatly improved after active control is performed, indicating remarkable vibration suppression effect. Dynamic equation of the flexible beam is deducted by Hamilton principle, and numerical simulation of active vibration control on the first three order vibration modes is also conducted in this paper. The simulation result matches experimental result very well. Both experimental and numerical results indicate that the independent modal control method using piezoelectric patch as driving element is a very effective approach to realize vibration suppression, which has promising applications in aerospace field.