A nonlinear X-shaped structure based tuned mass damper with multi-variable optimization (X-absorber)

• Published in: Communications in nonlinear science & numerical simulation Vol. 99; p. 105829
• Main Authors: Bian, Jing, Jing, Xingjian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.08.2021; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Absorbers; Biomimetics; Control methods; Damping; Energy dissipation; Mechanical properties; Nonlinear damping; Nonlinear stiffness; Nonlinear systems; Optimization; Robustness; Stiffness; System effectiveness; Tuned mass damper; Very Low Frequencies; Vibration; Vibration analysis; Vibration control; Vibration isolators; X-shaped structure/mechanism; X-shaped structure/mechanism; Tuned mass damper; Nonlinear stiffness; Nonlinear damping
• ISSN: 1007-5704; 1878-7274
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cnsns.2021.105829

•A novel nonlinear passive absorber (X-absorber) is proposed based on the X-shaped structure/mechanism;.•The X-absorber is shown to have beneficially tunable nonlinear stiffness and nonlinear damping;.•More stability, robustness and less sensitivity, subject to parameter and excitation change, and inherent nonlinearity;.•A new insight into the design of passive nonlinear absorbers, via the X-shaped structure/mechanism or their variants. Installing a tuned mass damper (TMD) is a promising vibration control method in many engineering applications which can suppress excessive vibration of a primary structure by transferring and dissipating vibration energy from the primary structure to the TMD. To overcome some limitations and drawbacks of traditional tuned mass dampers in practice, a bio-inspired X-shaped structure/mechanism is utilized to design a novel tunable and nonlinear TMD (X-absorber) in this study. To this aim, multi-variable optimization analysis, tunable stiffness and damping properties, nonlinear influence and vibration suppression performance of the new X-absorber are systematically investigated. The X-absorber can provide beneficial nonlinear damping and tunable quasi-zero stiffness which can significantly improve system parametric robustness, widen vibration suppression bandwidth with a widened anti-resonance, effectively suppress resonant peaks of very low frequencies, and eliminate potential instabilities (e.g., bifurcation, jump) inherently existing in Duffing systems, compared with traditional absorbers. The effectiveness and robustness of the X-absorber with different excitations compared with a traditional spring-mass absorber are verified in experiments. The X-absorber presents a new insight into the design of nonlinear passive absorbers of high performance, and a more flexible and reliable solution to many engineering problems.