Vibration control of an arc type shell using active constrained layer damping

Abstract

Active constrained layer damping (ACLD) combines the simplicity and reliability of passive damping with the low weight and high efficiency of active control to attain high damping characteristics. A cantilevered shell type arc that is made of carbon/epoxy composite material is chosen to investigate the potential of ACLD effectiveness. Using a system identification method, the arc/ACLD system is modelled as an ARMAX (autoregressive moving average exogenous) model and converted into a state space form to design optimal control laws. A linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controller is used to find optimal control gains. The performance of the ACLD system is determined and compared with passive constrained layer damping (PCLD) in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the ACLD treatment.