Flutter control of a composite plate with piezoelectric multilayered actuators

Active flutter velocity enhancement scheme is presented for lifting surfaces, employing Linear Quadratic Gaussian based multi-input multi-output controller with multilayered piezoelectric actuators. To numerically test the developed concept, a composite plate wing, surface bonded with eight piezoelectric bender actuators and sensors has been considered. A modal flutter control model is formulated in state-space domain using coupled piezoelectric finite element procedures along with unsteady aerodynamics and optimal control theory. The bending-torsion flutter instability has been actively postponed from 44.13 to 55.5 m/s using the energy imparted by the multilayered piezoelectric actuators. As the power requirement by these actuators is comparatively very low with respect to stack actuators, they can be employed in an integrated form to develop active lifting surfaces for real time applications. (C) 2006 Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.