Piezoelectric vibration control by synchronized switching on adaptive voltage sources: Towards wideband semi-active damping

Synchronized switch damping (SSD) principle and derived techniques have been developed to address the problem of structural damping. Compared with standard passive piezoelectric damping, these new semi-passive techniques offer the advantage of self-adaptation with environmental variations. Unlike active damping systems, their implementation does not require any sophisticated signal processing nor any bulky power amplifier. This paper presents an enhancement of the SSD technique on voltage source (SSDV) which is the most effective of the SSD techniques. The former SSDV technique uses a constant continuous voltage sources whereas the proposed enhancement uses an adaptive continuous voltage source which permits fitting the mechanical braking force resulting from the SSDV process to the vibration level. A theoretical analysis of the SSDV techniques is proposed. Experimental results for structural damping under single frequency and for vibration control of a smart board under white noise excitation are presented and confirm the interest of the enhanced SSDV compared to other SSD techniques. Depending on the excitation type, a 4- to 10-dB damping gain can be achieved.