Experimental implementation of an actively controlled tuned vibration absorber using piezoelectric actuators

Tuned vibration absorbers (TVAs) are known to provide effective vibration control at their specific tuning frequency. They can effectively dissipate vibration energy from the host structure, making them useful for the control of both time invariant tonal excitation and structural resonances. However, they are ineffective away from their tuning frequency, making them unsuitable for applications where broadband vibration control is required or where there is significant variance in the system dynamics or the vibration spectrum. By incorporating some form of actuation and sensing into a TVA, active control can be used to vary the response of a TVA after production, tuning the TVA dynamics to the potential time varying application requirements. This paper explores the tunability of a specific TVA design, where the spring elements of the TVA are actuated using piezoelectric patch actuators. Previous work has studied the<br/>theoretical limits of controlling the dynamics of this TVA design using feedback control strategies. The work presented in this paper extends this to an experimental implementation of active control on the proposed TVA design using commercially available piezoelectric actuators and sensors to establish the<br/>practical limits on actively tuning the considered TVA design.