Abstract
Vibrations occurring in structures can lead to failure if they are not structurally built with dampers or countermeasures to vibrations. One specific example studied in this thesis is the application of damping in space. Space structures are susceptible to low natural frequency vibrations due to the nature of their structural design like panels on satellites. When solar forces interact with these space structures, vibration occurs. Within the absence of air, an external mode of damping has to be introduced to control the structures to control their vibrations. This paper explores one method of introducing damping to a cantilever beam to imitate as small-scale model of a structure found in space. Damping is achieved in the form of using heat to generate mechanical damping from actuators attached to the cantilever beam. The main objective is to achieve any form of damping. Any large significance of the amount of damping could allow further study of the mathematical model as well as a design for an actuator. A standard linear quadratic regulator and Kalman filter are implemented for a state-feedback control and observer. LabVIEW VI is used to program the controller for real-time application experiment. The results show that some damping can be achieved, however, mathematically modeling using linear assumptions and solutions give an inaccurate approximation to the actual experimental response from controlling mutli-physics states. Increasing the heat may generate non-linear responses.