EFFICIENCY OF PIEZOELECTRIC WEDGE ACTUATORS FOR FINE TUNING OF MASS DAMPERS IN STRUCTURAL APPLICATIONS

Abstract eng:
A piezoelectric wedge actuator (PWA) is proposed in this paper to improve the seismic effectiveness of a passive tuned mass damper (TMD). A PWA is composed of a thin aluminum plate and two piezoelectric sheets bonded on the aluminum plate. The actuator is connected in series with a TMD and will be used either as a variable stiffness device or a damping unit regulated with applied voltage. Several control algorithms including displacement proportional, velocity proportional, and Bang-Bang strategies are considered. Numerical results indicate that a PWA is effective for a light mass damper and rapidly become ineffective as the weight of the damper increases. A change of 1% in natural frequency of a TMD experiencing a peak displacement of 0.25 in. can be achieved with the displacement proportional control when 750 Volts are applied on the piezoelectric actuator. Similarly, an increase of 33% in damping ratio can be achieved with the velocity proportional control and an equivalent damping ratio of 0.054 is obtained with the Bang-Bang control for a TMD of 0.024 original damping ratio.

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