Actuator Placement for Shunt Damping of Panel Structures

Abstract

Vibration and noise emission are great concerns for modern lightweight structures and have to be considered for fatigue and passenger comfort. Besides complex active systems or passive damping, piezoelectric shunt damping gives a third opportunity. To achieve best attenuation results, actuator placement has to be considered. In this paper, a simulation model is presented based on a modal predesign tool. The optimization in this tool is done by a genetic algorithm with multiple individuals with different placements of the piezoelectric transducers. For fitness evaluation of the individuals a system transfer function for shunt damping is derived. With the simulation algorithm, several calculations are performed for minimum sound or vibration power and compared for the effect of actuator surface, effectiveness of genetic optimization, the selectivity of the goal function and size of the patches versus number of independent networks.