Design of particle dampers for additive manufacturing

Abstract

Damping mechanisms are a crucial factor for influencing the vibration behavior of dynamic systems. In many applications vibrations are undesirable and need to be reduced by appropriate measures. For instance, vibrations in vehicles can reduce driving comfort or in civil engineering resonance damage can occur in constructions. An interesting and cost-effective way of increasing damping is particle damping. In modern processes of additive manufacturing, like laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), unmelted powder can be left inside a structure on purpose after making and thus producing integrated particle dampers already. Additively manufactured particle damping has not yet reached the industrial level because there are no detailed specifications for the design process. This includes the modeling of (non-linear) dynamic properties, based on numerous design parameters. The state of the art reveals that the effect of particle damping has been convincingly demonstrated, but transferability of the obtained information is still limited. In this paper the effect of particle damping is investigated experimentally with LPBF manufactured beam structures made of AlSi10Mg. Particle damping is evaluated in terms of performance curves for different beam parameter sets. The aim is to help the designer, who needs to keep amplitudes in certain range to estimate the damping of the potential particle damper via the given performance curves. Damping is determined via experimental modal analysis by impulse excitation. The response is evaluated in the frequency domain using the Circle-Fit method with a focus on the beams first bending mode of vibration. Beyond that, a significantly increased damping could be verified up to the seventh bending mode covering a frequency range between 600 Hz and 18k Hz. Damping through particle-filled cavities shows up to 20 times higher damping compared to the same component with fused powder.