PROJECT 2: DYNAMIC DESIGN OF MACHINES

Identification of vibrating structures, effects of dynamic dampers

Flexural Dynamic Behavior of a cantilever beam equipped with a
dynamic damper: FE analysis and experimental validation
The present project is devoted to:
1. Study the dynamic behavior of an aluminum alloy (AISI 2024) cantilever beam
using a numerical (FE) and experimental approach,
2. Validate the benefits of a dynamic damper mounted at the free end of the beam,
3. Identify the stiffness of the structure and the relative modal damping.
4. Identify the viscous damping introduced by the eddy current damper of the
dynamic damper.
The cantilever beam and the related dynamic damper are reported in figure 1 while
the main geometrical parameters are listed in table 1 and in table 2.

Figure 1: a) Cantilever beam with dynamic damper (eddy current damper). 1)

Aluminum beam AISI 2024, s) dynamic damper, 2) piezoelectric transducer, 3)
constraint. b): Dynamic damper: s1 copper conductor, s2) permanent magnets and
magnetic circuit s3, s4) elements connecting the flexural beam, s6) element
connecting the conductor (s1) to the free end of the beam, (s7) constraints of the
beams to the end of the bar

The following text highlight the methodology common to all the three configurations
of this problem:
Measurement of the FRF functions between the excitation force of the instrumented hammer
and the acceleration measured by the accelerometer. The voltage signals of the
instrumented hammer and of the accelerometer are acquired by the digital signal analyzer.
The analogical signals are transformed in digital ones and the FFT transformation is
computed in order to obtain the required FRF transfer function.

FRF =
2.

Acceleration measured by the accelerometer

Force of theinstrumented hammer

Implementation of the equivalent FE model

The beam element which will be considered is a Timoshenko beam element capable of
accounting for the shear deformation. Each element will have 6 degree of freedom per node.
Thus, a total of 12 degrees of freedom per node.

q = [ ux1, uy1, uz1,x1,y2, z2, ux2, uy2, uz2,x2, y2, z2]T

This part of the question involves considering the beam without any load(Dynamic Damper)
attached at the end.
The beam has an axis of symmetry along the planes X-Z and Y-Z and hence the beam has
properties needed to perform a complete uncoupling between axial, Torsional and flexural
vibrations in each of the co-ordinate lanes.
We will consider the flexural vibration of the beam in the X-Z plane with each node having
two degree of freedom (i.e. ux, y ) The beam has been divided into 28 elements to consider
the flexural behavior of the beam subjected to a force in the x-direction. The arrows below
show the degree of freedom at the two nodes of an element.

Since, the beam has been subdivided into 28 elements, we have 58 degrees of freedom and
a corresponding stiffness matrix containing 58 rows and 58 columns.

The stiffness matrix for each element is the following in the local reference frame. This is to
be used to construct the stiffness matrix as well as the mass matrix in the Global reference
frame. It is very simple to construct the mass matrix in the global reference frame since the
local reference is in sync with the global one.

takes in to account the effect of shear deformation based on the shape of the
structure.
Once, the mass and the stiffness matrix has been built, we can perform an eigenvalue
problem to find out the natural frequencies and the eigenvectors of the system. The
following computations are carried in MATLAB
[U,V] = eig(inv(Mc)*Kc);

%U eigenvectors

%V eigenvalues

Then, we can find out the modal matrices.

M
T
[ ]=[U ] [ M ][ U ]

K
[ ]=[U ]T [ K ] [U ]

Assuming that also the modal matrix of damping is diagonal, neglecting all the terms out of
diagonal, we can compute it by the definition of . In regard, we assume a constant value of
for all the elements of the structures and by its imposition we obtain [

C
.

Assuming that also the modal matrix of damping is diagonal, neglecting all the terms out of
diagonal, we can compute it by the definition of . In regard, we assume a constant value of
for all the elements of the structures and by its imposition we obtain [

C
.

C
C cr
[]
[ ]=

In this way the damping matrix can easily be obtained:

T

[ C ] = [ U ] [ C ] [ U ]

The value of is assumed and then verified matching the plots obtained by the
experimental transfer function and that of the model.
In order to obtain the bode plot of the model we need to build the state space system and in
particular the quadruple matrices (A, B, C, D). So we define the state vector as the vector
which contains velocities and displacements of each node and we focus on the acceleration
at the node where the accelerometer is fixed (output).

FIGURE 1 - SYSTEM EQUATIONS IN THE STATE SPACE CONFIGURATION

CONFIGURATION 1: Cantilever beam without dynamic damper

Under this configuration, an accelerometer is added onto the bar. The mass matrix is
required to be modified in order to take the contribution of the accelerometer. The
accelerometer is placed at a distance of 100 cm from the 1 st node i.e. node 11.
In order to fit the experimental as well as the FEM curve, we need to tune the following
parameters.

Tuning of the stiffness

Correction of the stiffness of the structure through the use of a factor called the Gain
factor which is inserted into the definition of [K]:
%GG=GAIN FACTOR

GG=

Tune the modal damping

We tune the value of

in order to have a good approximation of the experimental

curve obtained. The damping factor imposed is the following:

%DAMPING FACTOR - value imposed
zita_dashed=10^-3;

CONFIGURATION 2: cantilever beam with additional mass at the end

In the second configuration, a mass is added at the tip of the beam. From a matrix
point of view, we add the mass and the inertia of the not suspended mass to the
corresponding elements of the mass matrix which are Mc(55,55) and Mc(56,56).
Physically the parts added are highlighted in figure (6):

FIGURE 2: NON SUSPENDED MASS ADDED TO THE BEAM

In this figure s1 represents the conductor applied at the end of the beam and s6 the
element that connects the conductor to the main structure, in particular the
numerical data of not suspended mass are show in the table (2):

TABLE 1: NUMERICAL DATA OF NOT SUSPENDED MASS

Not suspended mass (s1,s6)

Mass

19.9 g

Not suspended mass (s1,s6)

Ig (CG mass moment of

inertia)

2323.6 g*mm2

Not suspended mass (s1,s6)

Dist. CG/free end of the

beam

18.01 mm

In this way the change to the mass matrix is the following:

% Addition of the not suspended mass
M(end-1,end-1)=M(end-1,end-1)+ma;
M(end,end)=M(end,end)+Jgac;

1.1 results
As in the previous case to the fit experimental data with the result of numerical
model we introduce a gain factor that takes into account the approximation on the
measures of Youngs modulus of the material and thickness of the beam.
%G=GAIN FACTOR
GG=0.89;k_F=GG*[K]el;

In addition we considered a gainthat take into account the approximation linked to

the mass value of the components added. In particular we considered a gain mass
(gm1) of 1.08 for the value of not suspended mass.The constant value of

assumed for all the elements of the structure in order to obtain the damping matrix
[C] is the following value:
%DAMPING FACTOR
zita_dashed=10^-3;

%value

FIGURE 3: TRANSFER FUNCTIONS: RED EXPERIMENTAL CURVE, BLU NUMERICAL CURVE

With the change of the mass matrix the global effect on the dynamic of the whole
system is the right shift of the picks related to the natural frequencies. In particular
the values of the new natural frequencies are shown in table 3:
TABLE 2: NATURAL FREQUENCIES VALUES

First natural frequency

[Hz]

18,82

Second natural frequency

[Hz]

118,06

CONFIGURATION 3: cantilever beam with dynamic damper

The system is now modified with an additional dynamic damper, as shown in Figure
5 - dynamic damper. Compared to configuration 2, the permanent magnets (s2)
and the connection elements (s3,s4) are an additional mass that is attached to the
structure with two spring beams (s5). Together with the additional mass (s1), that
was added in configuration 2, a magnetic circuit adds damping to the system.

FIGURE 5 - DYNAMIC DAMPER

The two parallel spring elements (s5) are modeled as one Thimoshenko beam
element, the matrices are listened in Error: Reference source not found. Therefore,
two additional degrees of freedom are added to the system. The elements (s2),(s3),
(s4) are modeled as a rigid body with a mass and a moment of inertia, which are
added to the mass matrix of the beam element.The values are listened in Table 3.
The global mass and stiffness matrices have to be modified.

TABLE 3 INERTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DYNAMIC DAMPER

Suspended mass (s2,s3,s4)

Mass

15.3 g

Suspended mass (s2,s3,s4)

Ig (mass moment of inertia

with respect to the CG)

923 g*mm2

Suspended mass (s2,s3,s4)

Dist. CG/free end of the

beam connected to the
suspended mass

-1.67 mm

1.2 results
In order to fit the numerical data with the experimental measured data, the Youngs
Modulus E of the numerical model is adapted. As before, a gain factor is introduced.
It is set to:
%GG=GAIN FACTOR
GG=0.89;k_F=GG*[K]el

The value of the gain mass (gm2) connected to the suspended massin defined as
1.03 and the viscous damping of the dynamic damper in the numerical model is set
to
% DAMPER DATA
cs=0.6;
cst=0;

in order to achieve a good fit with the experimental data. The resulting transfer
functions of the numerical model and the experimental data are plotted in Figure 4.

FIGURE 4 TRANSFER FUNCTIONS OF CONFIGURATION 3

In order to study the effect of the dynamic damper, the (numerical) transfer
functions of configuration 2 and 3 are plotted in the same figure. The result is shown
in Error: Reference source not found. The dynamic damper is tuned to the first
resonance at 19 Hz. Due to the effect of a dynamic vibration absorber, the first peak
splits into two peaks at a lower amplitude. The viscous damping reduces the overall
amplitude.
The dynamic of the system at higher frequencies is not effected very much due the
use of the dynamic damper. It only effects the first resonance.