Effects of Structural Parameters on the Dynamics of a Beam Structure with a Beam-Type Vibration Absorber

A beam-type absorber has been known as one of the dynamic vibration absorbers used to suppress excessive vibration of an engineering structure. This paper studies an absorbing beam which is attached through a visco-elastic layer on a primary beam structure. Solutions of the dynamic response are presented at the midspan of the primary and absorbing beams in simply supported edges subjected to a stationary harmonic load. The effect of structural parameters, namely, rigidity ratio, mass ratio, and damping of the layer and the structure as well as the layer stiffness on the response is investigated to reduce the vibration amplitude at the fundamental frequency of the original single primary beam. It is found that this can considerably reduce the amplitude at the corresponding troublesome frequency, but compromised situation should be noted by controlling the structural parameters. The model is also validated with measured data with reasonable agreement. 1. Introduction A beam-type absorber is one of the techniques to reduce undesirable vibration of many vibrating systems, such as a synchronous machine, mounting structure for a sensitive instrument, and other continuous structure in engineering. The absorber system usually consists of a beam attached to the host structure using an elastic element. The natural frequency of the absorber is then tuned to be the same as the troublesome operating frequency of the host structure to create counter force, which in return reduces the vibration of the structure. As beams are important structures in civil or mechanical engineering, several works have also been established to investigate the performance of the absorbing beam which is attached also to a beam structure. Among the earliest studies of the double-beam system is one proposed by Yamaguchi [1], which investigated the effectiveness of the dynamic vibration absorber consisting of double-cantilever visco-elastic beam connected by spring and viscous damper. The auxiliary beam is attached to the center of the main beam excited at its end by a sinusoidal force. It is found that the amplitude at resonances of the main beam is sensitive to the stiffness and mass of the absorbing beam. The damping ratio was formulated as a function of mass and layer stiffness of the absorber. Vu et al. [2] studied the distributed vibration absorber under stationary distributed force. A closed form was developed by utilizing change of variables and modal analysis to decouple and solve differential equations. Oniszczuk [3] studied the free vibrations of two identical parallel simply