Experimental Analysis of Flexural-Torsional Forced Vibrations of A Piezoelectric Double-Cantilever

Abstract

In this paper, the experimental flexural-torsional forced vibration of a piezoelectric double-cantilever structure is studied and compared with analytical results. The structure of interest consists of two uniform and identical Euler-Bernoulli cantilever beams that are connected by a rigid tip connection at their free ends. Each of the cantilever beams can be excited by a piezoelectric layer attached on its top surface. The time response to the forced vibrations of the structure induced by the piezoelectric actuators is found using the Galerkin approximation method. The effects of dimensional parameters, the length of the cantilever beams and the length of the tip connection, as well as the piezoelectric input voltage on the flexural-torsional amplitude of the vibrations of the structure are studied analytically and experimentally. The amplitude of the flexural-torsional vibrations of the structure is observed to be proportional to the piezoelectric input voltage. However, the slope of the curves defining this relationship depends on dimensional parameters. For a constant input voltage, the effect of either of the dimensional parameters on the amplitude of vibrations is dependent on the other dimensional parameter such that a turning point, whose location is dependent on the configuration of the structure, exists in all the curves.