Comparative study between dry friction and electrorheological fluid switches for Tuned Vibration Absorbers

Abstract

Tuned Vibration Absorbers are a widely used tool for suppressing the amplitude of a systems vibrations, one of the advantages being offered is that the absorber can be an add-on solution which is able to be adjusted offline. Many improvements have been made to the base system including the use of dry friction elements, and magneto- or electrorheological fluid (M-/ERF) elements. In this work the ability of both a dry friction based system and an electrorheological fluid (ERF) damper based system to reduce the amplitude response of a system over a wide range of frequencies through the use of the stick-slip effect is investigated through simulation. The unique advantage of using an ERF damper over a dry friction element are then investigated. Those are the ability of an ERF damper based system to adjust the breakaway force online and the ability of the damper to switch between the slip- and stick-states to further reduce the amplitudes over certain frequencies given that the excitation force is kept to a single frequency at a time. These investigations were first carried out through simulations and then through an experimental setup for both systems to prove the concepts in practice. The results of the experiment conclusively proved the ability of both systems to behave as predicted, especially the ability of the ERF damper to switch between stick- and slip-states to reduce vibration amplitudes in some frequencies.