Rotating beams are quite common in rotating machinery e.g. fans of compressors in an airplane. This paper presents the experimental, hybrid, structural vibration control of flexible structures to enhance the vibration behavior of rotating beams. Smart materials have been used as sensors as well as actuators. Passive constrained layer damping (PCLD) treatment is combined with stressed layer damping technique to enhance the damping characteristics of the flexible beam. To further enhance the damping parameters, a closed form robust feedback controller is applied to reduce the broadband structural vibrations of the rotating beam. The feed forward controller is designed by combing with the feedback controller using a pattern search based optimization technique. The hybrid controller enhances the performance of the closed loop system. Experiments have been conducted to validate the effectiveness of the presented technique.
Analysis of the backward bending modes in damped rotating beams