Proportional and derivative control for steady-state vibration mitigation in a piecewise linear beam system

A control using Proportional and/or Derivative feedback (PD-control) is applied on a piecewise linear beam system with a flushing one-sided spring element for steady-state vibration amplitude mitigation. Two control objectives are formulated: (1) minimize the transversal vibration amplitude of the midpoint of the beam at the frequency where the first harmonic resonance occurs, (2) achieve this in a larger (low) excitation frequency range, where the lowest nonlinear normal mode dominates the response. Experimentally realizable combinations of PD-control are evaluated for both control objectives. Eventually objective (1) is realized by applying proportional control only, whereas derivative control is selected to realize objective (2). The vibration reduction that is achieved in simulations and validated by experiments is very significant for both objectives. Current results obtained with active PD-control are compared with earlier results obtained using a passive dynamic vibration absorber.