Active and passive vibration isolation in piezoelectric phononic rods with external voltage excitation

Active piezoelectric materials are applied to one-dimensional phononic crystals, for the control of longitudinal vibration propagation both in active and passive modes. Based on the electromechanical coupling between the acoustical vibration and electric field, the electromechanical equivalent method is taken to theoretically predict the transmission spectrum of the longitudinal vibration. It is shown that the phononic rod can suppress the vibration efficiently at the frequencies of interest, by actively optimizing the motions of piezoelectric elements. In an illustrated phononic rod of 11.2cm long, active tunable isolations of more than 20dB at low frequencies (500Hz-14kHz) are generated by controlling the excitation voltages of piezoelectric elements. Meanwhile, passive fixed isolation at high frequencies (14k-63kHz) are presented by its periodicity characteristics. Finite element simulations and vibration experiments on the rod demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in terms of its vibration isolation capabilities and tunable characteristics. This phononic rod can be manufactured easily and provides numerous potential applications in designing isolation mounts and platforms.