Uncertainty quantification of the piezoelectric shunt damping technique applied to an arbitrary thin shell structure: an experimental approach

Abstract

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025.The present paper presents a systematic approach to quantify the uncertainties when the piezoelectric shunt damping technique is employed to attenuate the vibration effect in arbitrary thin shell structure. The research used an experimental approach. The experimental apparatus employed in the present research was able to analyze the effectiveness of the piezoelectric vibration absorber when applied to a mechanical structure with arbitrary shape, typically used in automotive outer structures. The inherent variability typically found in an automotive body structure assembly and the tolerances of electronic circuits were taken into the account in the analysis. Then, the uncertainty propagation was studied in details for the mechanical structure, RL-shunt circuit, and piezoelectric vibration absorber working in the peak attenuation and in the frequency band. A large dispersion can be observed in the mechanical structure, with a variability of approximately 16 Hz for the natural frequency and 10 dB for the mobility peak amplitude. The piezoelectric capacitance had demonstrated discrepancies from 10 to 27%, in the experimental results. Finally, the experimental uncertainty propagation had demonstrated, when the piezoelectric shunt damping technique is employed, an overall average value of the peak attenuation of 6.25 dB, representing an effectiveness loss of approximately 32%, with a huge variability (standard deviation of 2.1 dB). Considering the frequency range of operation from 190 to 210 Hz, an attenuation of 2.2 dB was achieved in average, in an independent way from the mechanical structure resonant natural frequency.

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