Optimal tracking vibration absorber for wideband vibration suppression

Abstract

Simple pendulum vibration absorbers are sometimes not robust enough in the face of variations in their environmental conditions and dynamic loads. In this work, a tracking vibration absorber is presented so as to modify the design of ordinary pendulum vibration absorbers. This model takes advantage of a curved surface instead of a constant radius path of conventional pendulums to enhance their robustness. Furthermore, a compound objective function is introduced for the optimization process, enabling these gravitational dynamic vibration absorbers to make use of their potential flexibility to adapt to a wide range of harmonic excitation circumstances. The governing dynamic equations are solved analytically through the Harmonic Balance method, and the optimization is carried out numerically for both the simple and compound objective functions. The performance, nonlinear behavior, frequency characteristics, and other aspects of this model optimized for various structural parameters are assessed and compared over a wide range of harmonic excitation forces. This study demonstrates how this suggested model is able to perform more robustly under diverse circumstances for a simple dynamic system and an N-story shear structure as a Multi Degree of Freedom (MDOF) System.