MODEL-FREE SEQUENTIAL DESIGN OF MULTIPLE ABSORBERS FOR THE BROADBAND VIBRATION CONTROL

An optimal design methodology for controlling broadband vibration response of dynamic structures using multiple dynamic vibration absorbers (DVAs) is proposed. The interactions and coupling effects among the absorbers and the primary structure are derived analytically and considered in deriving the optimum parameters of the multiple DVAs system. While most of the existing methods are model-based requiring accurate modal data of the primary structure, the proposed method is model-free which required only the measured response data of the primary structure. The proposed method involves a two-step procedure. The optimum locations of the distributed absorbers are firstly determined by using the excitation-dependent representative basis obtained from the principal component analysis in order to guarantee strong coupling with the controlled and higher-order representative basis and weak interaction with the lower-order representative basis. The frequency and damping parameters of the absorbers are then optimized sequentially through the min-max method. The proposed method is validated by two numerical experiments on a simply supported plate to suppress the resonant vibration amplitudes of the first four and eleven resonance peaks of the plate, respectively. The proposed method is compared to two reference methods and the numerical test results show that the proposed method provides similar or larger vibration amplitude suppression at all the resonances concerned of the plate with a maximum further reduction of 71.8% than the two reference methods.