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Amplification of damping of a cantilever beam by parametric excitation

Conference Paper · September 2008

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 Amplification of damping of a cantilever beam
by parametric excitation

F. Dohnal and B. R. Mace

9th International Conference on Motion and Vibration Control (MOVIC), Sep-

tember 15-18, 2008, Munich, Germany

Abstract A uniform cantilever beam with a spring of time-periodic stiffness at-

tached at some point along the beam is investigated. The force applied by the spring
to the beam represents a time-periodic boundary conditions. The equations of mo-
tion describing the bending vibrations of the beam lead to a system with time-
periodic stiffness coefficients, a system with parametric excitation. The stability of
the system is investigated by a numerical method based on Floquet’s theorem. It
is demonstrated that the parametrically excited beam structure exhibits enhanced
damping properties when excited near a parametric combination resonance fre-
quency of the difference type, i.e. a frequency that is the difference between two
natural frequencies. A certain level of the parametric excitation amplitude has to be
exceeded to achieve the damping effect in which the existing damping in the system
is artificially amplified. Upon exceeding this value, the additional artificial damping
provided to the beam is significant and most effective for suppression of vibrations
of the lower bending modes of the cantilever beam. Experimental verification of the
damping effect by a tuned parametric excitation is provided by measurement taken
of the transient vibration of a cantilever beam with and attached electromagnetic
device. This device consists of permanent magnets in combination with periodically
driven electromagnets and creates a periodic stiffness. Numerical simulation and the
experiment results confirm the validity of the theory.

F. Dohnal
Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK, e-mail:
fd@isvr.soton.ac.uk
B.R. Mace
Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK, e-mail:
brm@isvr.soton.ac.uk

1
2 F. Dohnal and B. R. Mace

1 Introduction

Systems of differential equations with periodic coefficients, also termed parametri-

cally excited systems, have been the focus of scientific research for more than five
decades. Parametrically excited vibrations occur if one or more coefficients of the
differential equations are not constant but periodically time-varying. The frequency
of the parameter change is prescribed explicitly as a function of time and is indepen-
dent of the motion of the system, e.g. by the rotational speed of a shaft. Examples
are a pendulum with periodically varying length or periodically moving pivot point
or a rotating shaft with nonsymmetric cross-section. Parametrically excited systems
and structures have been studied extensively in the past because of the interesting
phenomena which occur in such systems. A parametrically excited system may ex-
hibit parametric resonances if the parametric excitation frequency is close to (see
[16])
|Ω ∓ Ωl |
ηn = k , k, l = 1, 2, . . . n. (1)
n
Here Ω k and Ω l denote the jth and kth natural frequency of the undamped system.
There are several publications dealing with single or coupled differential equations
having a time-periodic coefficient, see i.e. [2], [16], [3] or [13]. The main focus there
is to investigate the destabilising effect of parametric excitation, i.e. the instability
boundary curves in the system parameter domain. The non-resonant cases were not
thought to be interesting for applications. The mechanism of damping by parametric
excitation as investigated here is based on the effect of coupling modes by paramet-
ric excitation and leads to artificial additional damping in the system caused by the
parametric excitation at this frequency. A specific parametric excitation that sta-
bilises an otherwise unstable system is called to be at parametric ”anti-resonance”.
The main theoretical contributions with respect to parametric anti-resonances in this
context can be found in [14, 1, 4, 7].
Very few studies have been undertaken to verify the existence of parametric anti-
resonances experimentally. Only discrete 2DOF systems of an artificial nature have
been investigated so far, see the studies in [5] and the design in [6] and verification in
[12]. The main motivation of the present study is to prove that the concept of damp-
ing by parametric excitation is applicable for damping the low frequency modes of
a flexible structure. Our investigation starts with an analytical analysis of the natural
frequencies of the system under consideration followed by a numerical analysis of
the location of parametric resonances and anti-resonances. Finally, experimentally
results are compared to these theoretical predictions.

2 Free lateral vibrations of a continuous beam

First, the natural frequencies of the spring-supported cantilever in Fig. 1 are deter-
mined. The equations of motion for the free vibrations of a uniform beam can be
Amplification of damping of a cantilever beam by parametric excitation 3

written as (see [11])

∂ 4 w(x,t) ∂ 2w
c2 (x,t) + 2 (x,t) = 0, (2)
∂x 4 ∂t

where c = EI/ρ A. A solution of eq. (2) can be found by using the method of
separation of variables. Substituting w(x,t) = W (x)T (t) into eq. (2) leads to

∂ 4W (x) ∂ 2 T (t)
− β 4W (x) = 0, + ω 2 T (t) = 0, (3)
∂ x4 dt 2
with
ω2 ρ Aω 2
β4 = = . (4)
c2 EI
The solutions to eq. (3) are

T (t) = A cos ω t + B sin ω t, (5)

W (x;Ci ) = C1 (cos β x + cosh β x) + C2 (cos β x − cosh β x)

+C3 (sin β x + sinh β x) + C4(sin β x − sinh β x). (6)

Necessary conditions for finding a unique solution of eq. (2) are two initial condi-
tions and four boundary conditions. The beam under consideration is fixed at x = 0,
free at x = l and is elastically mounted at the position x = l k . Corresponding to
eq. (6) we make the ansatz

W1 (x) for 0  x  lk ,
W (x) = (7)
W2 (x) for lk  x  l.

with
W1 (x) = W (x;Ci ), W2 (y) = W (x; Di ), y = x − lk . (8)
At the interface the deflection, slope and bending moment are continuous so that

z, w(x,t)
l
lk
m
b
h
x
E,I,ρ k0

Fig. 1 Spring-supported cantilever.

4 F. Dohnal and B. R. Mace

d d
W1 (lk ) = W2 (0), W1 (lk ) = W2 (0) (9)
dx dx
and equilibrium of the internal shear forces and spring force at at x = l k gives

d2 d2
EI W1 (lk ) = EI W2 (0), (10)
dx2 dx2
d d2 d d2
EI 2 W1 (lk ) = EI 2 W2 (0) + k0W1 (lk ). (11)
dx dx dx dx
With the boundary conditions

d d2 d d2
W1 (0) = 0, W1 (0) = 0, W2 (l − lk ) = 0, EI 2 W2 (l − lk ) = 0
dx dx2 dx dx
(12)

at the ends of the beam, the solution of eq. (7) yields the frequency equation
k0 
cos β l cosh β l + 1 = − − cos β (2lk − l) sinh β l + sin β l cosh β (2lk − l)
4EI β 3
 k0 
sin β l cosh β l − cos β l sinh β l + sin β (l − lk ) cosh β (l − lk )
2EI β 3

− sin β lk cosh β lk + sinh β lk cos β lk − sinh β (l − lk ) cos β (l − lk ) (13)

For k0 = 0 this equation simplifies to the frequency equation of a cantilever beam

cos β l cosh β l = −1, see e.g. [11].
The solutions to eq. (13) give the natural frequencies of the beam system as
function of the stiffness coefficient k 0 , as shown in Fig. 2. The lines corresponding
to two of the parametric resonance frequencies according to eq. 1, 2ϖ 1 and ϖ2 −
ϖ1 , are plotted as well where ϖ = (β l) 2 . For the system under consideration the
parametric anti-resonance frequency is predicted to be at Ω 2 − Ω1 while Ω 1 + Ω2
and 2Ω 1 are parametric resonances, see [7]. In the experiment, the beam system
is designed such that the resulting parametric resonance frequencies are not close
to the anticipated parametric anti-resonance at ϖ 2 − ϖ1 . In this study the mounting
position is chosen to be at l k = 0.25.

3 Free lateral vibrations of a discretised beam

Now, suppose that the stiffness coefficient of the spring no longer constant but is
varied periodically in time in the form k(t) = k 0 (1 + ε sin η t), with excitation am-
plitude ε , excitation frequency η and mean stiffness value k 0 . A separation between
time and space as in the previous section cannot be applied and an analytical solu-
tion of eq. (2) is no longer available. In this case a finite element model of the beam
is investigated using standard finite elements as can be found in [8]. The discretised
Amplification of damping of a cantilever beam by parametric excitation 5

400 400
ϖ1 ϖ2 ϖ1 ϖ2

ϖ2 − ϖ1

ϖ2 − ϖ1
300 300

k0 l 3 k0 l 3
200 200
EI EI 2ϖ1
2ϖ1
100 100

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
ϖn = (βn l)2 ϖn = (βn l)2
(a) lk = 0.25l. (b) lk = 0.75l.

Fig. 2 Fixed-free beam with elastic mounting at position lk : natural frequencies (solid line), para-
metric resonance frequency 2ϖ1 (dashed line) and parametric anti-resonance frequency ϖ1 − ϖ2
(bold dashed line)

equations of motion are

Mẍ(t) + Cẋ(t) + Kx(t) = f(t) (14)

with the mass, damping and stiffness matrices M, C, K and the force vector

f(t) = −k0 (1 + ε sin η t)Ux(t) (15)

where the matrix U has a single entry equal to 1 at the degree of freedom at x = l k ,
the other elements being zero. The natural frequencies of eq. (14) are calculated as

Ω 2 = eig{(M−1 (K + Uk0)} (16)

Eight finite elements are sufficient for this study to approximate the first three vi-
bration modes and frequencies accurately.
Equation (14) defines a system of linear differential equations with periodic co-
efficients. The stability of the trivial solution x = 0 can be investigated by means
of Floquet theory, see [15]. Since the equations of motion are linear they can be
expanded to the first order differential equations

ẏ = A(t) y, A(t) = A(t + T ), (17)

with a T -periodic matrix A(t). Floquet’s theorem postulates that each fundamental
matrix Φ (t) of the system can be represented as a product of two factors

Φ (t) = Q(t) exp(tC), (18)

where Q(t) is a T -periodic matrix function and C is a constant matrix. The damping
of the time-periodic system can be determined either from the eigenvalues of the
6 F. Dohnal and B. R. Mace

Floquet exponent matrix C or from the monodromy matrix Φ (T ), which is in fact

the state transition matrix evaluated after a period T . The monodromy matrix can
be calculated numerically by repeated integration of the system equations over one
period T , starting from linearly independent sets of initial conditions. It is conve-
nient to use the columns of the identity matrix I as vectors of initial conditions. By
solving n initial value problems

ẏ = A(t)y, [y1 (0), y2 (0), ..., yn (0)] = I, t = [0, T ], (19)

over one period T and by arranging the results as

Φ (T ) = [y1 (T ), y2 (T ), ..., y(T )n ] (20)

the monodromy matrix is obtained. Finally the eigenvalues of the monodromy ma-
trix, the characteristic multipliers,

Λ = eig(Φ (T )), (21)

are calculated numerically. The system is unstable if any of the eigenvalues satisfies

ln(|Λ |) > 0. (22)

1000 0
Ω1 Ω2
900
−2

800
−4
700
1
Ω2 − Ω

−6
600
k0

500 0
2Ω1
400
−2

300
Ω2

2Ω 2
−4
Ω1 +

200

−6
100
40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
η

Fig. 3 Maximum eigenvalue determined from eq. (22) for the spring supported cantilever of Fig. 1
with properties given in Table 1 and ε = 0.8. Frequency lines plotted according to eq. (16).
Amplification of damping of a cantilever beam by parametric excitation 7

The equivalent damping of the system is determined by the natural logarithm of the
maximum characteristic multiplier.
An analysis of the system in Fig. 1 with the values listed in Table 1 is per-
formed. Figure 3 shows the numerical solution for the eigenvalue (multiplier) of
the monodromy matrix in eq. (21) with maximum magnitude as a function of ex-
citation frequency η and the mean value k 0 for the excitation amplitude ε = 0.8.
The parameter range chosen for the parametric excitation frequency η covers all
parametric resonances corresponding to the first natural frequencies Ω 1 and Ω 2 .
For values of |Λ | > 1 the system becomes unstable and a parametric resonance is
established. However, for values of the mount stiffness k 0 > 270 N/m a paramet-
ric anti-resonance is found in the vicinity of the parametric excitation frequency
η = Ω2 − Ω1 .
A certain level of the parametric excitation amplitude ε has to be exceeded to
achieve the damping effect in which the existing damping in the system is increased.
For the properties in Table 1 the threshold is computed to ε > 0.28. Upon exceeding
this value, the additional artificial damping provided to the beam is significant and
most effective for suppression of vibrations of the lower modes of the cantilever.

4 Experiment

Figure 4 shows the experimental realisation of the system introduced in Fig. 1, an

aluminium beam with the dimensions and mechanical properties as listed in Table 1.
The periodic stiffness k(t) at the position x = l k was implemented by an electromag-
netic actuator that consists of two pairs of permanent magnets and electromagnets.
The permanent magnets were attached to the beam while the electromagnets were
fixed. The magnetisation was chosen such that repulsive forces, i.e. forces that sim-
ulates a spring, were generated between the permanent magnets and electromagnets
driving the beam to its equilibrium position. These forces depend on the beam de-
flection and the magnetic field. The magnetic field can be changed in an arbitrary
manner by the current provided to the electromagnets. A periodic current was ap-

displacement
signal
amplifier sensor Table 1 Mechanical properties and dimensions.
generator
parameter symbol value unit
length l 390 mm
cantilever cross section A 1 × 10 mm2
density ρ 2700 kg/m3
electromagnetic Young’s modulus E 70 GPa
actuator mounting position lk 100 mm
latch
mounting stiffness k0 780 N/m
mounting mass m 82 g
Fig. 4 Experimental setup (view from above).
8 F. Dohnal and B. R. Mace

Table 2 First natural and parametric frequencies of the beam structure.

natural frequency main parametric main parametric

in Hz resonances anti-resonance

Ω1 = 44.64, Ω2 = 118.14 2Ω1 = 89.3, Ω1 + Ω2 = 162.8, 2Ω2 = 236.3 |Ω1 − Ω2 | = 73.5

plied to realise a periodic stiffness as defined in eq. (15). The first two natural fre-
quencies and the corresponding parametric resonance and anti-resonance frequen-
cies are listed in Table 2. An electrically operated latch was used to hold the tip of
the cantilever at same initial position and released to produce a transient vibration.
A series of experiments was performed by varying the parametric excitation fre-
quency η between 50 and 220 Hz. Starting from an initial displacement of 20 mm at
the tip position, the transient displacement w(t) of a point close to the tip was mea-
sured by a laser displacement transducer. Two samples of this series are shown in
Fig. 5. The dashed line represents the transient motion of the beam with a constant
stiffness, k(t) = k0 , the solid line corresponds to the transient motion for a periodic
change of the stiffness with ε = 0.8 and η = 73.
The equivalent damping of the measured signals was determined by fitting an
exponential function to its envelopes. The Hilbert transform [9] was used to estimate
the envelope of the signals. With the measured signal w(t) the analytical signal

z(t) = w(t) + jv(t) (23)

is introduced, where v(t) is the Hilbert transform of w(t). The envelope of w(t) is
then simply estimated as |z(t)|. The equivalent damping (exponential decay) of the
measured signal is identified by fitting a line through ln |z(t)|.

20
ε = 0.0
tip displacement in mm

ε = 0.8
10

−10

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

time in s
Fig. 5 Comparison of transient vibrations for constant and periodically varied stiffness at x = lk ,
η = 73.
Amplification of damping of a cantilever beam by parametric excitation 9

equivalent damping
−2

−4 model
experiment
−6

−8 |Ω 1 − Ω 2 | 2Ω 1 Ω1 + Ω2
40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220
η

Fig. 6 Equivalent damping in dependency of the parametric excitation frequency η at ε = 0.8.

Figure 6 shows the identified equivalent damping as a function of the paramet-

ric excitation frequency η with ε = 0.8. This result is compared to the numerical
prediction in Fig. 3. For the beam with a constant stiffness at x = l k , η = 0, and
consequently k(t) = k 0 , the exponential decay is −1.78 due to the passive damp-
ing in the system. In the frequency range considered a parametric resonance is ob-
served close to the frequency 2Ω 1 = 89.3 and a parametric anti-resonance close to
|Ω2 − Ω1 | = 73.5. Here, the predicted results agree well with the experiment. The
minimum value of the identified decay is found at 73 Hz, which reflects the fact that
the parametric frequencies defined in eq. 1 are only approximate locations of the res-
onances and anti-resonances of the system. For example, the theoretically predicted
frequency line Ω 1 + Ω2 in Fig. 3 represents the skeleton line of the corresponding
contour lines but is only an approximation to the actual skeleton line, which would
be slightly shifted to higher frequencies.
An additional parametric resonance is predicted at the frequency Ω 1 + Ω2 =
162.8. However, in the experiment only a small decrease in the identified damp-
ing was seen. This is due to the fact that a parametric resonance is not established
immediately after releasing the beam from its initial displacement. In general, the
vibration amplitudes first decrease at a slow rate before the parametric resonance
kicks in and the amplitudes start to increase rapidly. Depending whether the time
of this turning point lies within the measured time interval, different damping co-
efficients will be identified. For a better agreement between theory and experiment
in a frequency band around Ω 1 + Ω2 a significantly longer time interval should be
chosen.
The effect of the parametric anti-resonance, damping by parametric excitation,
can be observed in the frequency interval between 50 to 83 Hz. In this range the
damping of the system is artificially increased, hence, amplified. At the optimum
frequency of 73 Hz the decay reaches its minimum value of −8.05. Compared to
the system with a constant stiffness, η = 0, this corresponds to an amplification of
damping by a factor of 4.5. The transient at this frequency is plotted in Fig. 5.
 10 F. Dohnal and B. R. Mace

5 Conclusions

In this study new findings on parametric resonances are presented. It is demonstrated

that a parametrically excited beam exhibits enhanced damping properties, when ex-
cited close to a nonresonant parametric resonance frequency. The damping effect
achieved by this method is significant for the lowest mode, i.e. in general the first
mode of the structure. It is verified experimentally for the first time that introducing
parametric excitation in a continuous structure can increase significantly its damp-
ing. A characteristic advantage of the method presented is the fact that parametric
excitation works as an open-loop system with no feedback control necessary.

Acknowledgements The financial support of the EPSCR Platform Grant in Structural Acoustics
(EP/E006450/1) is gratefully acknowledged.

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