The design of a piezostack-based active mount and application to a vibration control system

In this work, a new active mount featuring piezostack actuators and a rubber element is proposed and applied to a vibration control system. After describing the configuration and operating principle of the proposed mount, an appropriate rubber element and appropriate piezostacks are designed and manufactured. Subsequently, the dynamic characteristics of the piezostacks and the rubber element are experimentally identified. A vibration control system with a supported mass of 50 kg is then constructed, and its governing equations of motion are derived. In order to actively attenuate the vibration transmitted from the base excitation, a robust sliding mode controller is formulated with consideration of parameter uncertainties. The controller is then experimentally realized and vibration control performances (acceleration and transmitted force) of the proposed mount are evaluated in both time and frequency domains.