The use of passive piezoelectric damping using PZT ceramics has been demonstrated in theory and the number of experiments. The effort was multifaceted. For application of the shunted passive piezoelectric damping of structural composites, piezoelectric ceramic fibers (PZT family) of several tens of micron diameter were produced using sol gel spinning process. Since these fibers were not strong enough to withstand handling for continuous poling process, slurry extruded PZT MicroRods,(12O um in diameter and 10 cm long), were used to establish continuous poling method. The preparation of resistively shunted PZT fiber composites was done using above poled PZT MicroRods. Two attempt: to create a shunt circuit within the structural composites are summarized. To further understand and help design shunt PZT damping composite, modeling method was also developed throughout the course of the research.
