Development of a semi-active friction device to reduce vibration by energy dissipation

摘要

Aerospace structures such as antennas and solar panels often consist of truss elements which are connected by bolted joints. Friction damping in these bolted joint connections structures has been identified as a major source of damping. It has been proposed that an improvement in vibration reduction could be obtained by controlling the normal contact force using integrated piezoelectric elements in order to maximize the energy dissipated at the interface between the connected parts. This paper presents analytical and experimental results in order to demonstrate the interest of implementing semi-active vibration reduction by dissipating energy through dry friction contact surfaces. This work fits within the scope of a research project aiming at the development of a semi-active compact piezoelectric friction device which can be bonded to any light structure. In this device, a moving component will rub on two friction surfaces and the normal force on friction surfaces will be controlled so that the distance between moving component and friction surfaces is neither too small (to avoid shock and stiction that cancel the slip between two surfaces and then friction effect) or too large (lose of contact surface). This device will then be positioned on the structure in order to allow the maximum energy dissipation by friction to reduce the vibrations of the structure. Such semi-active device will ensure stability of the control approach and will avoid the spillover effect found with the active approach in addition to reduce energy consumption cost. In this paper, an analytical and experimental study is carried out on two beams assembled by a joint bolted to show the influence of the normal gripping force (tightening torque in this case), directly related to the friction force, on the damping of the modes.