A Self-Tuning Piezoelectric Vibration Absorber

A self-tuning piezoelectric vibration absorber is presented. A piezoelectric absorber, similar to a mechanical vibration absorber, has to be tuned to a particular structural vibration mode in order to be effective. The absorber presented here will tune itself to a particular mode and track that mode if it varies in frequency. Design of the aborber consists of a pair of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) tiles attached to the structure and shunted by an inductor-resistor circuit. This produces an electrical resonance that can be tuned to the desired structural mode by a simple control system. The absorber is experimentally demonstrated on a cantilevered beam. The experiments include an ex amination of the response of the absorber to an abrupt change in system parameters.