Analysis of the damping performance of vertically-vibrated particle damper

Abstract

Particle damping is an effective means of attenuating the response of a vibrating structure using granule-filled enclosure attached to or embedded inside the structure. The granular particles absorb and dissipate some of the vibrational energy of the system through inelastic particle-to-particle and particle-to-wall collisions. In this study, a particle damper attached to the free end of a cantilever beam is modeled as a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) mass-spring system. Using a load to introduce an initial displacement disturbance, the model is allowed to undergo free vibration. The effects of particle size, particle number, and volume ratio on damping performance were experimentally and numerically investigated. Results suggest that the amplitude of the acceleration response of the beam system decays exponentially rather than linearly. A decrease in the damped natural frequency of the system was observed as the number of particles used was increased. A critical value for the volume ratio was observed that provide the highest damping parameter for a specific particle size. This value was found to be 0.2278, 0.14, and 0.1823 for particle sizes of 2.5, 4, and 5 mm, respectively. This suggests that a specific combination of particle size and particle number is needed to produce a high damping performance.