Optimum design and control of partial active constrained layer damping treatments

Passive constrained layer damping (PCLD) treatments with visco-elastic cores are augmented with sensing and actuation capabilities to actively control and improve their vibration damping characteristics. The design parameters and control gains of the resulting active constrained layer damping (ACLD) treatments are optimally selected in this paper, for partially-treated beams. The theoretical performance of beams treated with the optimally selected ACLD treatments is determined at different excitation frequencies and compared with optimal PCLD treatments