A low-cost and efficient d33-mode piezoelectric tuned mass damper with simultaneously optimized electrical and mechanical tuning

Abstract

This paper proposes a low-cost and efficient piezoelectric tuned mass damper (Piezo-TMD) for structural vibration reduction and energy harvesting. The Piezo-TMD consists of not only a proof mass, piezoelectric materials deforming in the d33 mode, and an electrical resistance, but also a spring and an inductor which enable the mechanical frequency and electrical frequency of the Piezo-TMD to be tuned to the structural resonance frequency. The equations of motion of a structure with the Piezo-TMD are derived, and an optimal design procedure for the Piezo-TMD is proposed to achieve a simultaneous maximum vibration reduction and energy harvesting. The performance of the Piezo-TMD is compared with that of a conventional optimal TMD installed in a footbridge under a pedestrian loading. The simulation results show that the Piezo-TMD performs better than the optimal conventional TMD in terms of vibration reduction while efficiently converting the absorbed mechanical energy to electricity with a high energy harvesting ratio. The innovative development of simultaneously tuning the mechanical and electrical systems leads to a much lower number of PZT stacks (saving 88% of piezoelectric materials in an illustrated case). The parametric study shows that the Piezo-TMD achieves the best performance when the optimal values for the spring stiffness, resistance, inductance, and the number of piezoelectric stacks are adopted from the proposed optimal design. If the selected spring stiffness and inductance are uncertain in a range between 0.94-1.07 times the optimal values, the vibration reduction performance of the Piezo-TMD remains similar, and the energy harvesting performance reduces less than 5%, as compared to the optimal performance. The effect of the number of piezoelectric stacks was also investigated. An insufficient number of piezoelectric stacks reduces the Piezo-TMD performance, and an excessive stack number does not improve the Piezo-TMD performance but increases the Piezo-TMD cost. Finally, the proposed Piezo-TMD employs inductance to significantly reduce the PZT stack number, thereby significantly reducing the cost of Piezo-TMDs.