Vibration control of a simply supported cylindrical shell using a laminated piezoelectric actuator

This paper develops a novel laminated piezoelectric actuator (LPA) to control the vibration of a cylindrical shell structure, which is fabricated through bonding multiple piezoelectric layers of the same property together. The electromechanically coupled equations of the system are derived based on the classic shell theory. A parametric study is then conducted to evaluate the effects of geometric and physical properties of the actuator on actuating forces. The results show that as the number of layers increases, the actuating forces per voltage produced by LPA in the axial, circumferential and radial directions of the shell all increase noticeably. The active vibration control of a simply supported cylindrical shell using LPA of different layer numbers is simulated as well under a velocity feedback scheme. It is indicated that with the same control voltage the LPA can obtain a better control performance than the conventional single layer piezoelectric actuator as expected and the targeted radial modal vibration of the shell is attenuated significantly.