Development of an Interactive Smart Vibration Beam Experiment

Structural vibration has been always a major concern and this motivates engineers to study and control the undesired vibration on many structures. This paper presents development of an interactive smart flexible beam experiment using a low cost Freescale MC9S12C32 microcontroller. Piezoceramics material is a commonly used smart material that can function both as actuator or sensor. The smart beam has two surface bonded lead zirconate titanate (PZT) patches one as an actuator and other as a sensor. The experiment demonstrates the vibration of the beam at different modal frequencies and active vibration suppression of the beam under Positive Positioning Feedback (PPF) control and Sliding Mode Control (SMC) for the first mode. An interactive user interface with LCD display, keypad and pushbuttons is also developed. Through the use of pushbuttons, the microcontroller excites the beam at the first four modal frequencies and also controls the first modal vibration of the beam using PPF control and sliding mode control. The keypad is used to input a customized excitation frequency value, ranging from 0.1 Hz to 400 Hz. The experiment is multi-functional and can be used for educational as well as research purposes. These experiments can be used in courses related to dynamics, controls, and structures to improve student learning about the subject. For research, this experiment can be used as a test bed to study various PZT based active vibration control algorithms.