Novel integration method and successfully pre-stressed the piezo with a NiTi pre-stress element. This concept has high potential for macro and micro vibration damping due to the combination of NiTi and piezoelectric stack.
Powder bed fusion is an emerging additive manufacturing technique capable of producing complex formed metallic structures, which are not possible to manufacture with conventional manufacturing. These benefits of design freedom and manufacturability are often exploited in aerospace together with topology optimization to produce components with low mass and high stiffness.
However, additive manufacturing is producing monolithic structures which lead to weakly damped resonant vibrations threatening e.g. space missions or are hazardous for mounted equipment. The integration of piezoelectric elements is the baseline for damping of these structures.
They have the capability to convert mechanical (vibrational) into electrical energy, with the possibility to dissipate the later one. With this piezoelectric damping technique, eigenfrequencies can be adaptively tuned, which is not easily possible with conventional damping techniques.
In the first place, the piezoelectric stack needs to be integrated into a structure and pre-stressed according to the suppliers' recommendation. At inspire, we developed a novel integration method and successfully pre-stressed the piezo with a NiTi pre-stress element. This concept has high potential for macro and micro vibration damping due to the combination of NiTi and piezoelectric stack.
