Modeling active vibration control of a geared rotor system

This paper analyzes the practicality of active internal shaft transverse vibration control using a piezoelectric stack actuator for reducing external gearbox housing structure response due to transmission error excitation from a gear pair. The proposed adaptive controller that is designed specifically for tackling mesh frequency vibrations is based on an enhanced filtered-x least mean square algorithm with frequency estimation to synthesize the required reference signal. The vital system secondary path characteristic that relates the actuation force to the housing response of interest is identified in offline or online mode using the additive random noise technique. Numerical studies employing practical design parameters in order to provide a realistic assessment of the proposed approach are performed for a geared rotor system (dynamic plant) that is represented as finite and lumped elements. The simulations reveal very promising vibration control results, which will be utilized to guide future experimental studies.