Feedforward control of flexural waves propagating in a rectangular panel

This paper is concerned with active wave control of a distributed parameter structure. It is the purpose of this paper to present the active wave control method of a rectangular panel and to clarify fundamental properties of the control system. Firstly, a transfer matrix method for a rectangular panel is introduced to describe the wave dynamics of the structure. This is followed by the derivation of feedforward control laws for absorbing reflected waves or eliminating transmitted waves. In the proposed method, the control laws are including the modal actuation scheme for uncontrolled direction. Then, from a viewpoint of numerical analyses, basic properties of the proposed method are verified. It is found that the reflected wave absorbing control enables the inactivation of all vibration modes in the controlled direction and the transmitted wave eliminating control enables the generation of an almost vibration-free state. It is also found that some phenomena different from the case of a beam-like structure appear under certain boundary conditions.