Volume velocity vibration control of a smart panel using a uniform force actuator and an accelerometer array

This paper presents a study of low frequency volume velocity vibration control of a smart panel in order to reduce sound transmission. A distributed piezoelectric quadratically shaped polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymer film is used as a uniform force actuator and a 4 × 4 accelerometer array is used as a volume velocity sensor for the implementation of a single-input single-output control system. The theoretical and experimental study of sensor-actuator frequency response function shows that this sensor-actuator arrangement provides a required strictly positive real frequency response function below about 900 Hz. Direct velocity feedback could therefore be implemented with a limited gain which gives reductions of about 15 dB in vibration level and about 8 dB in acoustic power level at the (1.1) mode of the smart panel. It has been also shown that the shaping error of the PVDF actuator could limit the stability and performance of the control system.