Experimental investigation of a self-sensing active constrained layer damping treatment

A variational formulation of active constrained layer (ACL) damping treatments has indicated that the power dissipated through the active damping is the product of the electric field and the axial velocity of the piezoelectric constraining layer at the boundaries. This feature, unique to this formulation, suggests that a self-sensing and actuating piezoelectric constraining layer using rate of strain feedback may be an appropriate method of dissipating vibration energy with less instability, since the sensor and actuator are truly collocated. A partial ACL damping treatment design for an Euler-Bernoulli beam using a self-sensing actuator (SSA) as the active layer has been developed. The open loop transfer functions of the treated beam given by the SSA rate of strain circuit show great similarity to transfer functions taken from a reference sensor laminated directly to the beam. It has been shown experimentally that this beam treatment significantly increased the damping coefficient of the first mode in closed loop.