Modal and harmonic experimental validation of the vibration model of an elastic structure

In this paper it is shown that the problem of applying active control to a simple elastic plate structure can be introduced in a form which allows the application of optimal control theory. In particular, a modal model for the vibration of an elastic structure and the state space realization of this model are given. In the first part of the paper a modal analysis of the structure is introduced and the natural frequencies are computed both in analytic form and by a set of experimental tests. In the second part an harmonic analysis is performed and the output of the model is developed and compared with experimental results. This shows that the introduced model is a good description of the real process and an optimal active control of the elastic plate structure is feasible.