An active maximum power absorber for the reduction of noise and vibration

The objective of this work is to assemble and test a non-application-specific active controller for the reduction of noise and Vibration and discuss its potential for practical applications. The power absorbed by the controller is taken as a cost function to be maximized. The background theory and essential strategy are reported in the companion paper [1], where it was shown that power absorption maximization within the time taken for a wave emitted by the controller to come back to the control point, i.e., within a single sing-around time, is promising. A maximum power absorber based on this strategy was developed for experimental purposes and the (same) device was applied to three different vibration problems, a string, an acoustic tube and a plate model. These experiments confirmed that the absorber attenuates vibration from a variety of problems effectively, suggesting that the prospects for this controller are encouraging. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.