New Method of Negative Capacitance Shunt Tuning for Vibration Control

The control of vibrating structures using piezoelectric elements connected to simple control circuits, known as shunts, is a widely studied field. Many different shunts have been researched that haven been shown to obtain strong performance in both narrow and broadband frequency ranges. Yet, the choice for the exact parameters of these shunts can be found different ways. In this work, a new method of selecting the components of a negative capacitance shunt is presented. An impedance model of a piezoelectric patch is developed and used to predict the control of a vibrating structure. The model predicts the magnitude of the strain induced voltage caused by the vibrating substrate through the computation of two voltage readings within the shunt. It is then confirmed experimentally, that it is possible to obtain experimentally the shunt parameters that produce maximum control through measurement of the shunt response.