At the beginning of the project, a thorough analysis of the performance of a mechanical absorber for vibration mitigation of a turning machine was performed. In particular, the dynamics of the so-called unsafe zone was investigated. This is a particularly troublesome parameter region, since it involves nonlinear phenomena only partially understood and it is characterized by unexpected instability of the machining operation. Results are explained in the journal paper "Chatter Mitigation using the Nonlinear Tuned Vibration Absorber" (Int. J. Non-Linear Mechanics), realized through a collaboration with the University of Liege (Belgium).
Then, the actual danger of the unsafe zone was experimentally studied. This investigation was performed at IK4-IDEKO (Spain), a research center specialized in machine tool vibrations. The results were twofold. On the one side, they clearly illustrated that the unsafe region exists (this is still a matter of debate in the community), on the other side, the experimental analysis illustrated the unpredictability of the system behavior in this region and its limited extent in the parameter domain, which, considering also the general uncertainty of system parameters in machining, reduces its relevance from a practical point of view. Results will be soon published in the journal "Phil. Trans. Royal Society A".
The third step of the project consisted in an experimental investigation of the performance of a vibration absorber based on a piezoelectric transducer for vibration mitigation in a milling machine. The analysis took more time than expected and it is still ongoing. Preliminary results illustrate the good matching between analytical predictions and experiments, however, they also highlight that the coupling factor between the mechanical and the electrical subsystems is a critical parameter.
Additionally, the performance of a passive vibration absorber based on a chaotic (but deterministic) behavior was investigated. The analysis illustrates the potential benefit of the proposed design for vibration mitigation in a general mechanical system. Results are published in the journal paper "The Tuned Bistable Nonlinear Energy Sink" (Nonlinear Dynamics), realized in collaboration with the Sapienza University of Rome (Italy).
The analysis of involved nonlinear systems illustrated the appearance of unusual dynamical phenomena; in particular, isolated resonance curves were experiences. These can be hardly identified with standard numerical and experimental techniques. A thorough analysis of the phenomenon was performed during this project. Results are published in the journal paper " Isolated Resonances and Nonlinear Damping" (Nonlinear Dynamics), realized in collaboration with the University of Cambridge (UK) and the University of Liege.
The possibility of addressing detrimental nonlinear behavior of a system by linearizing it was addressed in another study, currently under review at the J. Sound Vibration.
The application of the vibration absorber designed for machining was studied also for human induced vibration, for example in haptics devices. A paper presenting the obtained results is currently under preparation.
All results obtained in this project were presented in several conferences and seminar, as detailed below:
Conferences:
IMAC XXXV, Garden Grove (USA) January 2017
ENOC 2017, Budapest (Hungary) June 2017
EURODYN 2017, Rome (Italy) September 2017
CSNDD, Tangier (Morocco) June 2018
IFAC TDS 2018, Budapest (Hungary) June 2018
IUTAM Symposium ENOLIDES, Novi Sad (Serbia) July 2018
ICDVC-2018, Shijiazhuang (China) 28-30 June 2018
Department seminars:
University of Liege (Belgium), Host: Prof. Gaetan Kerschen
Technical University of Wien (Austria), Host: Prof. Alois Steindl
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (China), Host: Prof. Li Zhang