Active vibration control of doubly-curved panels

Abstract

This thesis considers active control of the vibration of doubly-curved panels. Such panels are widely used in vehicles such as cars and aircraft, whose vibration is becoming more problematic as the weight of these vehicles is reduced to control their CO2 emissions. The dynamic properties of doubly-curved panels are first considered and an analytic model which includes in-plane inertia is introduced. The results of this analytical model are compared with those from numerical modelling. Of particular note is the clustering of lower-order modes as the curvature becomes more significant. The influence of these changes in dynamics is then studied by simulating the performance of a velocity feedback controller using an inertial actuator. The feasibility of implementing such an active control system on a car roof panel is then assessed.
Experiments and simulations are also conducted on a panel, mounted on one side of a rigid enclosure, which is curved by pressurising the enclosure. The active control of vibration on this panel is then implemented using compensated velocity feedback control and novel inertial actuators. It is found that the performance of the feedback control initially improves as the curvature increases, since the fundamental natural frequency of the panel becomes larger compared with the actuator resonance frequency, but then the performance is significantly degraded for higher levels of curvature, since the natural frequencies of many of the panel modes cluster together. Finally, the integration of a compensator filter in the control system ensures the robustness of the system, despite changes in curvature, which makes it a good candidate for future multi-channel implementations.

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