Amplitude reduction of primary resonance of nonlinear oscillator by a dynamic vibration absorber using nonlinear coupling

The paper presents the characteristics of a new type of nonlinear dynamic vibration absorber for a main system subjected to a nonlinear restoring force under primary resonance. The absorber is connected to the main system by a link in order to be excited with twice the frequency of the motion of the main system. The natural frequency of the absorber is tuned to be twice the natural frequency of the main system, in contrast to autoparametric vibration absorber, whose natural frequency is tuned to be one-half the natural frequency of the main system. The presented absorber is not excited through the autoparametric resonance, i.e., no trivial equilibrium state exists. Therefore, the absorber always oscillates because of the motion of the main system and cannot be trapped by Coulomb friction acting on the absorber, in contrast to the autoparametric vibration absorber. Under small excitation amplitude, this absorber does not produce an overhang in the frequency response curve, which occurs because of the use of the conventional autoparametric vibration absorber; the overhang renders the response amplitude larger than that in the case without an absorber. In addition, the absorber removes the hysteresis in the frequency response curve caused by the nonlinearity of the restoring force acting on the main system. Regarding large excitation amplitude, the response amplitude in the main system can be decreased by increasing the damping of the absorber, but that decrease is limited by the nonlinearity in the restoring force acting on the main system. This paper also describes experimental validation of the absorber under small excitation amplitude using a simple apparatus.