Subordinate Oscillator Arrays: Physical Design and Effects of Error

Abstract

Prior work demonstrates that an attached subordinate oscillator array (SOA) can attenuate vibration of a host structure over a frequency range of interest. A judicious choice of the distribution of masses and stiffnesses of the attached oscillators can result in a relatively flat frequency response of for the host structure over a desired band. This response modification can be a significant improvement over classical dynamic vibration absorbers (DVA) that attenuate a structure's response at one target frequency while increasing the frequency response amplitude at nearby side frequencies. Performance of the SOA can be highly sensitive to the uncertainty or disorder in the mechanical properties of the system. This paper introduces a novel design strategy that can make use of either 3D-printing or piezoelectric SOAs (PSOAs). These strategies have the potential to address and ameliorate such sensitivity to error. It is important to note that the design strategy is simple and effective in that it can be carried out without computational optimization techniques by choosing simple or well-known distributions of properties.