Inverse Sub‐Structuring Theory for Coupled Product Transport System Based On the Dummy Masses Method

Abstract

It is of high importance to predict the components frequency response functions (FRFs) for obtaining the coupled product transport system's response. However, the components behaves much differently when coupled with another components compared with that in free state. Inverse sub‐structuring method has been recently proposed and applied for inverse analysis of the dynamical response of coupled product transport system. The component‐level FRFs and the coupling dynamic stiffness are all predicted from only the system‐level FRFs, facilitating the engineering design for product transport system. However, in most engineering application practices, the system‐level FRFs from coupling degrees of freedom may not be measured accurately because of the difficulties of vibration excitation and/or response measurement for the coupled interface between components within the limited accessible space. The aim of this paper is to develop a new FRF‐based indirect inverse sub‐structuring method for the analysis of the dynamic characteristics of a two‐component coupled product transport system without measuring system‐level FRFs at the coupling degrees of freedom. A so‐called dummy masses method is developed and applied for predicting the unmeasured FRFs at the coupling degrees of freedom, and the inverse sub‐structuring approach based on the dummy mass method is derived for inverse analysis of coupled product transport system, which is further verified by a lumped‐mass model, showing exact agreement. Finally, the experiment on a physical prototype of two‐substructure coupled product transport system is performed to further check the accuracy of the suggested method. The new method shows its great application prospect in coupled product transport system.