A new active-passive approach for the control of noise radiated from a small axial fan was investigated. The approach involved the installation of an axial fan into a short duct with both passive and active noise control functions. First, a systematic methodology for the analytical modeling of finite-length ducts with multiple discontinuities was formulated. The procedure involved the modeling of a duct as a collection of simple duct sections, which were interconnected at multiple junctions. Analytical studies have shown that a short lined duct provides passive noise reduction effects through the mass-loading effect of the duct air volume at low frequencies and the sound absorption by a passive liner at high frequencies. It was also shown that active control can provide further noise attenuations at low-to-mid frequencies, thereby enhancing the overall noise control performance. Two alternate designs of active-passive noise control fan duct were considered. One was a simple non- segmented duct with a 2x2 active control and the other was an internally segmented duct with an 8x8 active control. It was indicated that the latter design possesses a significantly higher global noise control potential than the former with respect to both bandwidth and attenuation level. This was attributed to the reduction of the unwanted pressure contributions from the duct cross modes through the high frequency shifting of the associated cut-on frequencies. The experimental validation of the noise control approach was also carried out. An active-passive noise control fan duct incorporating the segmented duct design with 8x8 active control was constructed in conjunction with a hybrid feedforward-feedback control system. Experimental results have shown significant reductions in the total fan noise power associated with the first four BPF tones by the feedforward control and the broadband fan noise power by the feedback control. The overall active-passive noise control characteristics were observed to be in accordance with the analytical results. / Ph. D.

Traditional dynamic vibration absorbers (DVAs) consist of a mass-spring-damper system and are an effective means of attenuating structural vibration over a narrow frequency band. The effective bandwidth of the DVA can be increased by the addition of an externally controlled force, generally applied between the reaction-mass and the primary structure. Such devices are known as hybrid DVAs. This thesis presents a new hybrid DVA configuration which utilizes two reaction-masses in parallel. On this proposed hybrid dual-mass (DM) DVA, the control force is applied between the reaction-masses. It is shown that in broadband control applications, the proposed DM-DVA requires less control force to achieve the same primary attenuation as the traditional hybrid single-mass (SM) DVA. The hybrid DM-DVA was compared to the hybrid SM-DVA with two tests. A numerical simulation of the hybrid DVAs attenuating a single-degree-of-freedom structure was performed. To achieve an equal amount of primary attenuation, the hybrid SM-DVA required 65% higher root-mean-square (RMS) control effort than the hybrid DV-DVA. The numerical model also demonstrated that the hybrid DM-DVA was less sensitive to changes in the system as compared to the hybrid SM-DVA. Additionally, a prototype hybrid DVA was built which could be configured as either the hybrid SM or DM-DVA. The prototype hybrid DVA was used with the feedforward Filtered-X LMS algorithm to control the vibration of a fixed-free beam. The hybrid SM and DM-DVAs attenuated the primary response by a factor of 11.5 and 12.3, while requiring control efforts of 4.9 and 2.7 V/N RMS, respectively. Thus, the hybrid DM-DVA required 45% less control effort while yielding a higher attenuation ratio in this experiment. These results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed DM-DVA for broadband control applications as compared to the traditional SM-DVA. / Master of Science

Passive control techniques to minimize structural vibrations are limited with respect to the amount of attenuation obtained especially in the low-frequency region but do not require adding any power. Active control methods are effective for reducing structural vibrations, especially at low frequencies, but may require significant control effort. Thus, passive and active control methods have complementary frequency ranges of application. This research consists of combining active and passive control techniques to simultaneously attenuate extensional and flexural power flows in infinite thin beams and determine the advantages and disadvantages of such a combination. An analytical model is developed for an infinite beam with a passive insert of high damping placed at some distance from a point force excitation (passive approach). The passive control of vibrations results in a reduction of both extensional and flexural power flows downstream of the passive material discontinuity. The simultaneous active control of extensional and flexural waves, using two co-located independent piezoceramic actuators bonded to the surface of the beam, is theoretically studied. The active control model shows that the use of two independent piezoceramic actuators allows complete cancellation of the total power flow (sum of the extensional and flexural power flows) downstream of the actuators. The combination of passive and active control methods for three different configurations (actuators located upstream of, downstream of, and on the passive insert) is investigated and complete control of the total power flow is again achieved. The results demonstrate that in the case of the actuators bonded to the passive material discontinuity, the active/passive combination has great potential for reducing the control effort required for the active controller. Finally, an approximation of the influence of heavy fluid flanking paths on the optimal active/passive system is developed by simulation of these flanking paths using axial and torsional springs. This last study shows that both axial and torsional springs will result in modification of the control effort required by the actuators if their respective stiffness is greater than the equivalent stiffness of the section in parallel with the springs. / Master of Science