A Novel Application of Multi-Resonant Dissipative Elastic Metahousing for Bearings

Abstract

Bearing as an important machine element is widely used for industrial and automotive applications. At certain operational speed, bearings induce disturbing vibrations and noises that affect machine service life, productivity and passenger comfort in case of vehicle applications. Dissipative elastic metamaterials have caught considerable attention of scientific community due to their effective medium properties and peculiar dynamic characteristics including frequency bandgaps that can be effectively applied to attenuate and control undesirable vibration and noises. Although a substantial amount of theoretical work for effective medium characteristics and dynamic properties of acoustic/elastic metamaterials has been reported, the practical design and application of these composite structures for real-life engineering problems still remain unexplored. The present study intends to investigate a potential application of dissipative elastic metamaterials in controlling the bearing-generated vibration and noises over an ultrawide frequency range. The study is based on a simple analytical model together with rigorous finite element numerical simulations. It has been established that the dissipative characteristic of resonant system caused by larger material mismatch broadens the local resonance bandgaps beyond the bounding resonance frequency at the cost of wave transmission. In order to achieve broadband vibration and noise control, multi-resonant composite structures are embedded inside the bearing housing in five different layers. The reported results revealed the presence of broadband wave attenuation zone distributed from 3 to 52 kHz with consideration of material damping. The bearing-generated vibration and noises lying inside the wave attenuation zone will be mitigated. This feasibility study provides a new concept for the design and application of acoustic/elastic metamaterials in the bearing industry to improve machine service life and to enhance productivity and passenger comfort.