Partial pole placement in structures by the method of receptances: Theory and experiments

The theory and practical application of the receptance method for vibration suppression in structures by multi-input partial pole placement is described. Numerous advantages of the receptance method over conventional matrix methods such as state-space control based on finite elements have been demonstrated, in particular there is no need to know or to evaluate the structural matrices M, C, K and in practical experimentation the measurement of 'receptance' may be generalised so that explicit modelling of actuator dynamics becomes unnecessary. Active vibration control is demonstrated experimentally using two test rigs. In the first set of experiments partial pole placement is applied to a lightweight glass-fibre beam using macro fibre composite (MFC) actuators and sensors. In the second set of experiments active vibration control is implemented on a heavy modular test structure representative of systems of differing dynamic complexity using electromagnetic actuators and piezoelectric (ICP) accelerometers. It is demonstrated that chosen poles may be assigned to predetermined values without affecting the position of other poles of interest.