Self-powered active control of elastic and aeroelastic oscillations using piezoelectric material

Piezoelectric materials have been used as sensors and actuators in vibration control problems. Recently, the use of piezoelectric transduction in vibration-based energy harvesting has received great attention. In this article, the self-powered active vibration control of multilayered structures that contain both power generation and actuation capabilities with one piezoceramic layer for scavenging energy and sensing, another one for actuation, and a central substructure is investigated. The piezoaeroelastic finite element modeling is presented as a combination of an electromechanically coupled finite element model and an unsteady aerodynamic model. An electrical circuit that calculates the control signal based on the electrical output of the sensing piezoelectric layer and simultaneously energy harvesting capabilities is presented. The actuation energy is fully supplied by the harvested energy, which also powers active elements of the circuit. First, the numerical predictions for the self-powered active vibration attenuation of an electromechanically coupled beam under harmonic base excitation are experimentally verified. Then, the performance of the self-powered active controller is compared to the performance of a conventional active controller in another base excitation problem. Later, the self-powered active system is employed to damp flutter oscillations of a plate-like wing.