Ling S., Wang D.

The concept of utilizing a PZT-coated cantilever for simultaneous sensing and actuating (SSA) in dynamic testing of structures was derived and confirmed usable in previous studies. In the theory, the SSA capability was enabled through a 2 by 2 transduction matrix which describes the relationships between the potential and flow variables at the input and output port of this electromechanical transducer. The four elements of the matrix are actually frequency response functions (FRFs) between one of input and output variables in a broader sense. They characterize the forward actuating and backward sensing properties of the transducer concisely and completely. In this paper, using these 4 FRFs, the sensing and actuating capability of such SSA cantilever transducers are indicated by performance index of sensing and actuating respectively. A number of numerical experiments were first performed to confirm the appropriateness of these two indices. An optimization strategy was then formed to obtain the best balance between the sensing and actuating capability of a given SSA cantilever. Through numerical simulations and nonlinear optimization, design of the SSA cantilever was improved and the performance of the optimized cantilever as a SSA transducer was confirmed significantly better than the original design. In addition, the functional behavior of a SSA transducer is made clearer through the simulations and performance analysis.