Investigation of active structural intensity control in finite beams: theory and experiment

An investigation of structural intensity control is presented in this paper. As opposed to previous work, the instantaneous intensity is completely taken into account in the control algorithm, i.e., all the terms are considered in the real-time control process and, in particular, the evanescent waves are considered in this approach. A finite difference approach using five accelerometers is used as the sensing scheme. A feedforward filtered-X least mean square algorithm is adapted to this energy-based control problem, involving a nonpositive definite quadratic form in general. In this respect, the approach is limited to cases where the geometry is such that the intensity component will have the same sign for the control source and the primary disturbance. Results from numerical simulations are first presented to illustrate the benefit of using a cost function based on structural intensity. Experimental validation of the approach is conducted on a free-free beam covered with viscoelastic material. A comparison is made between classical acceleration control and structural intensity control and the performance of both approaches is presented. These results confirm that using intensity control allows the error sensors to be placed closer to the control source and the primary disturbance, while preserving a good control performance.