A DVA-Beam Element for Dynamic Simulation of DVA-Beam System: Modeling, Validation and Application

The dynamic vibration absorber (DVA) has a broad application background in slender structure vibration reduction, such as in machine gun systems, micro actuators, and so on. Rapid modeling and simulation of the DVA-beam system are of great importance for dynamic performance, evaluation, and finally, the structural design. The primary motivation for this paper is to present a reliable and convenient technique for the modeling and computation of the DVA-beam system. A novel DVA-beam element, which consists of a beam segment and a DVA, is presented. In this element, the DVA position can be arbitrarily allocated, whether on the beam node or within the beam domain. In this way, the beam can be modeled with a few elements to save on computing costs and maintain ideal modeling accuracy. An element deactivating method, which endows the DVA-beam element with the ability to simulate a bare beam and a DVA-beam structure simultaneously, is proposed. Some numerical examples were carried out to validate the reliability of the DVA-beam element in addressing different kinds of boundary conditions by comparing the beam tip responses with those simulated by ADAMS software, and good agreements were observed. Finally, two DVA optimization examples were conducted to investigate the effectiveness and applicability of the DVA-beam element in engineering optimization. The performance was impressive.

Automated summary

This study presents a novel DVA-beam element and an element deactivating method for rapid modeling and computation of the DVA-beam system. The reliability and convenience of the proposed method are validated through numerical examples. The effectiveness and applicability of the DVA-beam element in engineering optimization are investigated and impressive performance is observed.