Experimental investigations of structurally pre-stressed actuator based active vibration isolation system

Abstract

Active Vibration Isolation is considered to be one of the most effective methods to reduce the undesirable vibrations generated in any mechanical system. Stacked piezoactuators are suitable actuators used for variety of applications such as micro and nano positioning applications because of their high stiffness and fast response. However in order to provide optimal preloading force to the stacked actuators for longer lifetime and better performance with dynamic applications these stack actuators are structurally pre-stressed. In the present work, an active vibration isolation system is designed and developed using two structurally pre-stressed actuators namely source actuator and isolator actuator where source actuator is used for generating vibrations and the isolator actuator to nullify the generated vibrations. Initially the transfer function of the MLA 10x10x20 stack actuator was identified using its known parameters and was modeled in MATLAB/ Simulink to estimate the simulated displacement for a particular voltage at different frequencies. The simulated displacements were then compared with experimental displacements for different frequencies and the results were plotted. The experimental displacements of both source actuator and isolator actuator were found at different frequencies and was compared with the simulated displacements for a particular voltage and the results were plotted. Finally active vibration isolation experiments were carried out using the proposed set up for a particular voltage at different frequencies and the percentage of vibration isolation achieved was also estimated. © 2020 Author(s).