Article

Journal of Vibration and Control

2014, Vol. 20(13) 1960–1966

Variable stiffness type magnetic vibration ! The Author(s) 2013

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absorber to control the vibration of beam DOI: 10.1177/1077546313481237
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structure

FB Sayyad and ND Gadhave

Abstract
Vibration absorbers are frequently used to control and minimize excess vibration in structural systems. Dynamic
vibration absorbers are used to reduce undesirable vibration in many applications such as pumps, gas turbines, engines,
bridges, electrical generators, etc. To reduce the vibration of the system, the frequency of the absorber should be equal
to the excitation frequency. The aim of this paper is to investigate the use of a variable stiffness type magnetic vibration
absorber to control the vibration of beam structure. This study will aim to develop variable stiffness of a magnetic
vibration absorber to adapt to the change in a vibratory system; its stiffness can be varied by changing the distance
between magnets. The absorber system is mounted on a cantilever beam acting as primary system. The objective is to
suppress the vibration of the primary system subjected to a harmonic excitation whose frequencies vary. This can be
achieved by varying the stiffness by changing the distance between the magnets. The advantage of a magnetic vibration
absorber is that it can be easily tuned to the excitation frequency, so it can be used to reduce the vibration of a system
subjected to variable excitation frequency.

Keywords
Magnetic vibration absorber, variable stiffness, magnets, excitation frequency

vibrations. A tunable DVA is simple to construct and

1. Introduction
When a structure is undergoing some form of vibration,
there are number of ways in which this vibration can be
controlled. Passive control involves some form of struc-
tural augmentation or redesign, often including the use
of springs and dampers, that leads to reduction in the
vibration. Active control augments the structure with
sensors, actuators, and some form of electronic control
system which specifically aim to reduce the measured
vibration levels. Vibration absorbers are devices
attached to flexible structures in order to minimize
the vibration amplitude at a specified set of points.
Dynamic vibration absorbers (DVAs) are used to
reduce undesirable vibrations in many applications
such as electrical transmission lines, helicopters gas tur-
bines, engines, bridges, etc. Traditional treatment meth-
ods of vibration control that involve structural
modifications are often time consuming and expensive.
Different methods are available to control the vibration
of beam, structures and machineries. Some of them can
be used as tunable vibration absorbers to control
can be easily tuned to an excitation frequency to min-
imize the vibrations and can be effectively used to min-
imize vibrations of a structure. An absorber with
variable frequencies can be used to minimize vibrations
of structures having variable frequency drives. DVAs
were first invented in 1909 by Hermann Frahm and
since then they have been successfully used to suppress
wind induced vibration and seismic response in build-
ings. In recent studies, interest has also been focused on
the use of feedback and feed forward control systems,
and the synthesis of DVAs for multiple-degree-of-
freedom systems. Igarasi et al. (1991) have developed
Mechanical Engineering Department, Genba Sopanrao Moze College of
Engineering, Pune, Maharashtra, India
Received: 21 January 2013; accepted: 5 February 2013
Corresponding author:
FB Sayyad, Mechanical Engineering Department, Genba Sopanrao Moze
College of Engineering, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
Email: farooksayyad@rediffmail.com
Sayyad and Gadhave
a magnetic DVA with adjustable natural frequency in
three permanent magnets arranged with opposite poles
to each other. The repelling force between two magnets
is used as spring constant and the response of the
system investigated by considering the nonlinear prop-
erties of restoring force. Igarasi et al. (1993) then devel-
oped a DVA using permanent magnets to suppress the
vibrations of beam structures; the DVA was tuned to
various frequencies of a beam by adjusting the distance
between three rare-earth magnets. In this three rare-
earth magnet arranged in the direction of opposite
poles, the repulsion force between two magnets was
used as spring constant. Spring constants change with
changes in the distance between magnets, which is why
the absorber is tuned to various frequencies.
Nagaya and Sugiura (1995) developed the magnetic
levitation actuator for obtaining a linear system. They
investigated the nonlinear properties of spring con-
stants. The restoring force due to the magnetic force
is linearized by controlling the electric currents in the
coil of electromagnets. The nonlinear properties of
spring constants are control by adjusting the supply
of current to an electromagnet. This absorber includes
three permanent magnets and two electromagnets.
Nagem et al. (1997) developed the electromechanical
vibration absorber to suppress the vibration of the
simply supported beam using the E shape magnet.
Nagaya et al. (1999) presented a method of vibration
control for structures with the consideration of higher
modes of vibrations. In their method, the principle
vibration mode is controlled by the use of auto-tuning
anti-resonance control of the tunable variable stiffness
vibration absorber without damping, and higher modes
are suppressed by the optimal vibration absorber with
magnetic damper. Li and Hu (2001) have presented a
numerical simulation of magnetic field design for
damping thermocapillary convection in a floating half
zone. The magnetic fields developed by electric coils are
designed for damping the thermocapillary convection
in a floating half zone in microgravity and also the
fields are designed specially to reduce the flow near
the free surface. Balamurugan and Narayanan (2002)
have developed smart constrained layer damping
(SCLD) treatment control of the vibration of beams.
SCLD design consists of a viscoelastic shear layer sand-
wiched between two layers of piezoelectric sensors and
actuator and this composite bonded to a vibrating
structure acts as a smart treatment. Hill and Sunder
(2002) have described the design of a vibration absorber
(dual mass vibration absorber) using Finite Element
Analysis (FEA) in analysis software (ANSYS) software
to reduce structural vibrations at multiple frequencies
with enlarged bandwidths. They carried out experi-
ments to control vibrations of panel having all-sides
clamped boundary conditions and a simply supported
1961
beam. They showed that an absorber could be used to
provide local vibration attenuation on large electrical
transformers. They presented a development of a prac-
tical absorber that facilitates vibration attenuation at
multiple frequencies and investigated the possibility of
using multiple, closely spaced resonances to expand the
effective bandwidth of the absorber and absorber use
variable stiffness for tuning purposes. Bhave and Gupta
(2003) have designed and developed active DVA.
Solenoid valves with a plunger and spring arrangement
were used to keep the absorber mass fixed with the
beam. The absorber designed was best for those
machines that run at variable speeds, but remain at a
particular speed for a considerable amount of time.
Hasmi and Golnaarghi (2003) have modeled buildings
as cantilever beams. They designed an active moving
mass damper and experimentally implemented it to
control first mode of vibrations. Then they designed
an alternative pendulum control system and imple-
mented it. Liu et al. (2006) have developed a tunable
electromagnetic vibration absorber (EMVA) whose
stiffness is on-line tunable. The EMVA is capable of
suppressing vibration of the primary system (a simply
supported beam) excited by harmonic force with vari-
able frequency. Khazanov (2007) has explained an
effective and low-cost method to reduce the vibrations
of a pump over a wide operating speed range by install-
ing a DVA. Deng and Gong (2007) have presented the
application of magnetorheological elastomers to a
vibration absorber. Moradi et al. (2008) have designed
a tunable vibration absorber to suppress chatter vibra-
tions in boring operation in which the boring bar is
modeled as a cantilever Euler–Bernoulli beam instead
of considering it as a single degree-of-freedom system.
The optimum values of the absorber parameters, such
as spring stiffness, absorber mass, and absorber pos-
ition are determined using an algorithm based on a
mode summation method. Huang and Hung (2011)
have developed the piezoelectric vibration absorber.
This absorber is made of a pair of piezoelectric
sheets, attached to both sides of the plate, and closed
electric circuits. One piece of the piezoelectric material
provides a sensor for detecting the motion of the plate.
Another piece serves as an active dynamic absorber.
2. Theoretical design of the primary
system
2.1. Governing equation of the primary system
The governing equation for the natural frequency of a
cantilever beam is given by
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
!n ¼ 2n EI=pA ð1Þ
1962 Journal of Vibration and Control 20(13)

pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
!n ¼ ðn lÞ2 EI=pAl4 ð2Þ
where, wn is natural frequency of a cantilever beam, Bn
is constant to be determined from the boundary condi-
tions, l is the length of the beam, p is the mass density,
I is the moment of inertia of the beam and A is the
cross-section area of the beam. For the rectangular uni-
form beam
sides. The natural frequency of an absorber can be
changed over a wider range by changing the distance
between magnets.
For cylindrical magnets the relation between dis-
tance between magnets and repelling force F(d) is cal-
culated by using relation,
Fðd Þ ¼ Kdn ð3Þ

E ¼ 207  109 pa where K ¼ 1.5  103 Nmn and n ¼ 3.022.

Distances d1 and d2 are obtained by solving the fol-
 ¼ 7800 kg=m2 lowing equations

and I ¼ (bh3)/12. The value of ðlÞ2 depends on the kðdn n

1  d2 Þ þ mg ¼ 0 ð4Þ
boundary condition of the beam. For a beam,
b ¼ 0.05 m, t ¼ 0.01 m, l ¼ 0.445 m, and I ¼ 4.1667  and
109 m4. Where, b is the width of beam, h is the
d1 þ d2 ¼ L ð5Þ
height of beam and t is the thickness of beam.
For a cantilever beam Results of the above equations are given in Tables 2
and 3.
(1l)2 ¼ 3.52 for the fundamental mode, !n1 ¼ Figure 2 shows the graph of repelling force vs. dis-
51.45 rad/s and f1 ¼ 42.60 Hz tance between magnets. Form this graph it is clear that
(2l)2 ¼ 22.0 for the fundamental mode, !n2 ¼ the repelling force is increased with a decrease in the
321.56 rad/s and f2 ¼ 210.22 Hz distance between magnets.
(2l)2 ¼ 61.7 for the fundamental mode, !n3 ¼
902.43 rad/s and f3 ¼ 269.09 Hz

2.2. Modal analysis of a beam

In order to predict frequencies and mode shapes of a
beam, modal analysis is carried out using ANSYS soft-
ware. The beam is modeled using a SOLID 45 element.
SOLID 45 is used for three-dimensional modeling of a
solid structure. Table 1 shows first three natural fre-
quencies obtained by ANSYS software.

Figure 1. Arrangements of three cylindrical magnets.

3. Theoretical design of absorber
The magnetic vibration absorber proposed in this
Table 2. Solution of simultaneous equation.
study is the same as the passive magnetic vibration
absorber. It is made up of three permanent magnets L (mm) d1 (mm) d2 (mm)
with two poles facing each other set in front of each
130 66 64
other as shown in Figure 1. A magnetic dynamic
absorber that uses the repelling force of permanent 120 60.92308 59.0769
magnets as the restoring force (restoring force acts 110 55.84615 54.1538
on magnets A forming a mass element of the absor- 100 50.76923 49.2308
ber) and change the natural frequency of the absorber 90 45.69231 44.3077
by changing the distance between magnets on both 80 40.61538 39.3846
70 35.53846 34.4615
Table 1. First three natural frequencies. 60 30.46154 29.5385
50 25.38462 24.6154
f1 f2 f3
40 20.30769 19.6923
42.60 Hz 210.22 Hz 269.09 Hz 30 15.23077 14.7692
Sayyad and Gadhave 1963

Table 3. Repelling force for various distances.

L (mm) d1 (mm) d2 (mm) F(d1) (N) F(d2) (N)

130 66 64 5.6202 6.168

120 60.92308 59.0769 7.1582 7.856
110 55.84615 54.1538 9.3142 10.219
100 50.76923 49.2308 12.418 13.629
90 45.69231 44.3077 17.077 18.739
80 40.61538 39.3846 24.375 26.751
70 35.53846 34.4615 36.5187 40.049
60 30.46154 29.5385 58.154 63.812
50 25.38462 24.6154 100.93 110.784
40 20.30769 19.6923 198.25 217.272
30 15.23077 14.7692 472.384 518.344
Figure 3. Graph of stiffness vs. distance between magnets.

Table 5. Frequencies for various

distances.

L (mm) fn (Hz)

130 8.91
120 10.050
110 11.96
100 14.49
90 17.91
80 22.70
70 29.69
60 40.49
50 58.42
40 91.51
Figure 2. Graph of repelling force vs. distance between 30 163.200
magnets.
The stiffness of absorber is calculated with help of
equation (6)
Table 4. Stiffness for various distances. n o
L (mm) d1 (mm) d2 (mm) Ke ðN=mm2 Þ Ke ¼ kn dðnþ1Þ
1 þ dðnþ1Þ
2 ð6Þ

130 66 64 548.57
120 60.92308 59.0769 756.42 Figure 3 shows the graph of stiffness vs. distance
110 55.84615 54.1538 1074.085 between magnets.
100 50.76923 49.2308 1577.42 The frequancy of the absorber is calculated with the
90 45.69231 44.3077 2407.46
help of equation (7)
80 40.61538 39.3846 3865.97 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
70 35.53846 34.4615 6617.169
!n1 ¼ ðKe=mÞ ð7Þ
60 30.46154 29.5385 12296.85
fn1 ¼ !n =2 ð8Þ
50 25.38462 24.6154 25613.30
40 20.30769 19.6923 62826.5 Natural frequencies decrease with increases in distance
30 15.23077 14.7692 199774.33 between magnets, which is shown in Table 5.
1964 Journal of Vibration and Control 20(13)

Figure 4. Graph of natural frequencies vs. distance between

magnets.
Figure 6. Frequency response of cantilever beam with tuned
absorber.

Figure 5. Two degrees-of-freedom model of vibrating system.

Figure 4 shows the graph of natural frequencies vs.

distance between magnets. The tunable absorber will be
tuned to changing the frequency from 0.8 fn to 1.2 fn.
So the approximate frequency of the absorber lies
between 34.08 Hz and 51.12 Hz, Therefore, the respect-
ive distance between magnets is selected at 70 mm.

Figure 7. Experimental setup.

4. Mathematical modeling of absorber
A two degrees-of-freedom lumped model of a vibrating
system with an absorber is shown in Figure 5.
The main system cantilever beam having mass m1
and stiffness k1 is coupled with a secondary system
having mass m2 and stiffness K2. The primary system
is excited by a harmonic force F0sin(!t). A cantilever
beam of dimensions length ¼ 0.544 m, width ¼ 0.05 m,
and height ¼ 0.01 m and made of steel is selected. The
dimensionless frequency response curves for main
system and undamped absorber tuned to various exci-
tation frequencies are show in Figure 6.
The attenuation performance of the undamped
absorber is evident at !/!1 ¼ 1. The addition of a prop-
erly tuned absorber will cause the system previously
characterized by a single resonance to have two
resonances. The two frequencies appear on either side
of the single resonance. The mass ratio m2/m1 plays an
important part in determining if absorber is effective.
5. Experimental studies
The experiments were done on a cantilever beam. One
end of beam was clamped to a rigid support and the
absorber was clamped to the free end of the beam.
An accelerometer was mounted on the beam as shown
in Figure.7. The beam was excited with the help of an
exciter. For the first set of readings the mass on the rods
of absorber was at its outermost position.
Excitation frequency was gradually increased and
for each frequency the amplitude of vibration of the
Sayyad and Gadhave
Figure 8. Graph of amplitude verses excitation frequency of beam with and without absorber.
main system was measured. Then for next set of read-
ings the positions of the magnets on the rod of the
absorber was changed. The natural frequency of an
absorber can be changed over a wider range by chan-
ging the distance between magnets. For this setup the
excitation frequency was again gradually increased.
The same procedure was repeated for a number of pos-
itions of magnets on rods of the absorber. Then an
amplitude versus excitation frequency graph was
plotted for different distances between magnets for a
cantilever beam, which is shown in Figure 8.
From Figure 8 it is clear that the amplitude of vibra-
tion is considerably minimized. Thus a cantilevered
magnetic absorber which is easy to construct can be
designed. This magnetic absorber can be used as a tun-
able vibration absorber at multiple frequencies.
6. Conclusion
By using ANSYS software the natural frequency of a
primary system and mode shapes have been studied.
Theoretical and ANSYS values of frequencies are in
close proximity. Natural frequencies of absorbers
were calculated by analytical methods and the effect
of the distance between magnets on natural frequencies
was studied. It was observed that as distance between
magnets was increased the natural frequencies
decreased. The absorber is effective near to the reson-
ance. There was a significant reduction in the amplitude
of the primary system when the absorber was tuned at
resonance, and amplitudes of vibration were reduced
from 2389 microns to 263 microns when distance
between magnets was L ¼ 52 mm. It was observed
that as the distance between magnets was changed,
1965
that is tuned, there was slight shifting of the peak.
The effectiveness of the absorber was checked on a can-
tilever beam. It was found that the designed absorber is
very effective in reducing vibrations of the beam when it
is tuned to various excitation frequencies nearer to the
natural frequency of the cantilever beam.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding
agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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