Track: Undergraduate Student Paper Competition

Abstract

Vibration controllability with smart fluids within flexible composite structures has been of significant interest for many decades, with research being conducted on various strategies to reduce dangerous vibration levels. Composite materials have the advantage of having improved material qualities that are comparable to metallic alloys while being low in weight. This project primarily focuses on the control performance of the smart composite beams, partially filled with Magneto- Rheological fluid core, using Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) controller, Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) controller, and Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller. It is designed with mainly two different combinations (Carbon Fibre - MR Fluid Core - Carbon Fibre), and (Glass Fibre - MR Fluid Core - Glass Fibre), to obtain the displacement-time data from the Finite Element analysis to obtain transfer function, state space representation and all other related data, as the design of LQG controller, LQR controller, and PID controller was applied to the experimental system. From there, the necessary parameters are applied within each respective controller to check the change within amplitude and settling time using MATLAB-Simulink. The percentage reduction in settling time as well as vibrational amplitude was discovered to be significant.