Smart panel with piezoelectric patches connected to adaptive multi-resonant shunts for broadband vibration control

This paper presents a simulation study on the broadband control of flexural vibration of thin panels equipped with piezoelectric patches connected to adaptive multi-resonant shunts. The study considers the broadband flexural response of a thin rectangular aluminum panel exposed to a spatial and time stochastic excitation. The panel is equipped with thin square piezoelectric patches connect to shunts encompassing multiple parallel branches formed by RLC components connected in series. The capacitance C of each branch is kept fixed, whereas the inductance L and resistance R are adapted so as each branch maximizes the vibration power absorption from the resonant response of a specific flexural mode of the panel. The study proposes an on-line tuning approach, where the N-branches of each shunt are adapted sequentially to maximize the vibration absorption from the resonant responses of N neighbor flexural modes. The vibration power absorption of each branch is estimated from the electric power absorbed by the shunt. In this way a local tuning system can be implemented, which adapts on-line the shunts to control the flexural response produced by a group of flexural modes of the panel resonating in a given frequency band.