Title of the Project:

Thesis : VIBRATION REDUCTION IN CHAIN MULTIPLE MASS SPRING DAMPER

SYSTEMS

Supervisor : Dr. S. Çağlar BAŞLAMIŞLI

Members of the Project:

NAME – SURNAME : Selçuk KAYABAŞI

PHONE : 0 536 313 89 31

E-MAIL : selcuk.kayabasi@hotmail.com

DATE OF BIRTH : 13.06.1985

AND PLACE : Bursa

LANGUAGES : Turkish (native speaker), English

EDUCATION :

2009-2011 MSc Mechanical Engineering Department,

Hacettepe University, Ankara, TURKEY

2009 BSc Faculty of Technical Education, Department of Automotive

Education, Gazi University, Ankara, TURKEY

2004 High School M. Kemal Coşkunöz Anatolian Technical High School,

Mechanical Education, Bursa, TURKEY

Problem Statement:

Vibrations are fluctuations of a mechanical or structural system about an equilibrium position.

Vibrations are initiated when an inertia element is displaced from its equilibrium position due to an
energy imparted to the system through an external source.

Vibrations occur in many mechanical and structural systems. If uncontrolled, vibration can lead to
catastrophic situations. Vibrations of machine tools or machine tool chatter can lead to improper
machining of parts. Structural failure can occur because of large dynamic stresses developed during
earthquakes or even wind-induced vibration. Vibrations induced by an unbalanced helicopter blade
while rotating at high speeds can lead to the blade’s failure and catastrophe for the helicopter.
Excessive vibrations of pumps, compressors, turbomachinery, and other industrial machines while
the noise produced can cause human discomfort. (KELLY, 2000)
Motivation:

Vibration has long been known for its capacity for disturbance, discomfort, damage and destruction.
This “4-D” potential has been reason enough for multi-million-dollar industries to be established
which produce devices and materials to control it. At the top end of the vibration scale, earthquake-
generated vibration is by far most destructive and has destroyed cities. At the lowest and, the
vibration generated in an apartment by a neighbour’s washing machine can be mildly annoying or
maddening.

Occurrences of vibration are numerous, but in every case there is a limit to the level of vibration that
can be tolerated. The human body and its parts are acute sensors of the vibration imposed upon it in
road or rail vehicles, in factory or construction works, in the aeroplane, ship or helicopter etc.

The tolerable levels depend upon the part of the body on which
the vibrating system is acting and the extent to which other parts
of the body are excited in sympathy – whether the owner is
sympathetic to the idea of it or not! He certainly deserves
sympathy in the very extreme case when his vertebrae become
disconnected (as they might with extreme excitation) or when he
develops “white finger” due to prolonged vibration of his hand.
These, of course, are extreme and damaging cases. Many more
problems occur which only affect the concentration and efficiency
of the operator. He might be the operator of a machine in a factory
or the driver of a truck or tank. Vibration can lead to fatigue, which
in turn might lead to inefficiency, accident, destruction of a vehicle
and even death.

**Vibration white finger (also known as hand-arm vibration syndrome and

dead finger) is an industrial injury triggered by continuous use of
vibrating hand-held machinery. Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome
(Vibration White Finger)

Automobiles and aeroplanes have always been explicit targets for vibration. Designers of these
vehicles must ensure vibrational comfort for the driver, the crew and passengers. The cut-throat
competition between rival automobile manufacturers means that the vehicle with the most
vibration and noise can lose the market

Any machine which rotates or reciprocates is source of vibration. A

ship contains many such machines, which include the main
propulsive engines, the air compressors and air-conditioners,
diesel-generator sets and water pumps. If ship’s propellers have
been damaged the unbalance and vibration so created can be the
source of discomfort and sleeplessness for unfortunate passengers
in the wrong part of the vessel.

There is a limit to the amount of vibration which electronic equipment can sustain without
malfunction or breakage.

Generation by the rotor of almost-steady total lift on the helicopter is accomplished by a cyclic
variation of the blade incidence as it rotates. The force from an individual blade on the rotor head
inevitably fluctuates and is transmitted through the rotor head into both the cabin structure and the
rotor control mechanism. The consequent cabin vibration leads to passenger and pilot discomfort,
while the vibration in the control mechanism is transmitted through to the pilot’s hands. It was once
said (but perhaps is no longer true) that a helicopter
pilot could be identified by shaking his hand. It had a
perpetual tremor! But the pilot is also disturbed if the
instrument panel vibrates significantly. His eyes may by
unable to follow the movement and the instrument
may become unreadable. In addition, the vibration
transmitted from the pilot’s seat to his head can make
his head nod and his eyeballs vibrate in their sockets,
and this further impairs his reading ability. Under these
conditions the whole vehicle becomes lethal.

Many more examples could be quoted to illustrate this,

but enough have been given to show the great
diversity in both the size and nature of the vibrating
objects. The large building shaken by an earthquake
and the super-tanker excited by its engines are the
largest of these, but larger still are some suspension
bridges and skyscrapers which can vibrate undesirably
in the wind. Even more extensive in length are the
high-voltage power transmission lines stretched over
miles of the Earth’s surface and which are also
susceptible to wind-excited vibration. Smaller static
objects which may suffer vibration include components
of giant steel-rolling mills, meters in length, but the
smallest of all might be the read-write heads in PC
hard-disk drives, which are measured in millimeters.

** The earthquake on August 17, 1999 in Turkey. At least 17,118

people killed, nearly 50,000 injured, thousands missing, about
500,000 people homeless and estimated 3 to 6.5 billion U.S. dollars
damage in Istanbul, Kocaeli and Sakarya Provinces.

Serious vehicle vibration can occur in the largest jet-

airliners carrying 500 passengers or in the smallest
ultra-light aeroplane which can barely carry one. It
must be controlled in the great earth-moving vehicles
and in the two-wheeled moped, as well as in lorries,
trucks and automobiles of every intermediate size. But
vibration control is not only relevant in urban
situations and high-tech transportation vehicles. It is
relevant also in forestry, and rural agriculture, where
tractors, trucks and cranes operate in very rough
environments and given rough rides to their drivers.
Most farming machines have reciprocating actions
which generate vibration from which their operators
must be protected. Shoulder-borne, engine-powered
pesticide sprays pose a serious vibration hazard to their
users. (Mead, 2000)

Considering these effects of unwanted vibrations, reducing them has a vital importance on human
life and comfort. Moreover, it improves the structural strength, product quality and ride comfort.

Introduction of the Project and Literature Survey:

Vibrations can be introduced, with beneficial effects, into systems in which they would not naturally
occur. Vehicle suspension systems are designed to protect passengers from discomfort when
traveling over rough terrain. Vibration isolators are used to protect structures from excessive forces
developed in the operation of rotating machinery. Cushioning is used in packaging to protect fragile
items from impulsive forces.

Our study of vibrations begins with the mathematical modeling of

vibrating systems with Matlab. In addition, tuned mass dampers
(TMD) and level type vibration isolators (LVI) are added to it with
different configurations. Solutions to the resulting mathematical
problems are obtained and analyzed. The solutions are used to
answer basic questions about the vibrations can be reduced or how
vibrations can be introduced into a system with beneficial effects.

A tuned mass damper (TMD) consists of a mass (m), a spring (k),

and a damping device (c). M is the structure to which the damper
would be attached. Tuned mass damper system

A TMD is a passive damping system which utilizes a secondary mass

attached to a vibrating structure. The secondary mass is given
dynamic characteristics that relate closely to that of the primary
structure. By varying the mass ratio of the secondary mass to the
primary body, the frequency ratio between the two masses and the
damping ratio of the secondary mass, a certain amount of damping
can be produced. Essentially, the TMD can be viewed as an energy
sink, where excess energy that is built up in the building, bridge or
vehicle...etc is transferred to a secondary mass. The energy is then
dissipated by some form of viscous damping device (usually in a
form of heat) that is connected between the building and the TMD
mass itself.

In order to obtain better results with TMDs, configurations with

chain of linear TMDs are planning to be obtained without changing
the original suspension stiffness and damping coefficient. In
addition to these, the effect of increasing the number of TMDs used
Chain of linear TMDs
in the chain configuration is going to be investigated.
 f : Excitation frequency
f0: Natural frequency of
the system

Amplitude - Frequency response of a low damped system without (blue) and with (yellow) tuned mass damper

There are various vibration control techniques like reducing vibration excitations at the source by
improving the design, changing the level of damping or using dynamic vibration absorbers. However,
possibly the most widely used approach for vibration control is vibration isolation. In this method,
the source of vibration and the object to be protected are separated by a system called vibration
isolator (Yılmaz, 2005)

According to external energy requirement, vibration isolation systems can be separated into three
groups: passive, active and semi-active.

Active Control System: An active control system requires an

external power source to control actuators that apply forces
to the structure in a prescribed manner. These forces can be
used to both add and dissipate energy in the structure. In an
active feedback control system, the signals sent to the
control actuators are a function of the response of the
system measured with physical sensors. These systems are
used to control the response of structures to internal or
external excitation. Active control devices make use of a
wide variety of actuators, including active mass dampers,
tendon control, which may employ hydraulic, pneumatic,
electromagnetic, or motor driven ball-screw actuation. An
essential feature of active control systems is that external
power is used to effect the control action. (Ahsan and Active control system for vehicle
suspensions
Navid)

Passive Control System: A passive control system does not

require an external power source. Passive control devices
develop mechanical forces within themselves in response to
the motion of the structure. Passive control depends on the
initial design of the structure, on the addition of viscoelastic
material to the structure, on the use of impact dampers, or
on the use of tuned mass dampers and other dampers as
well. Passive control system for vehicle
suspensions
Semi-active System: Semi-active control systems are a class
of active control systems for which the external energy
requirements are smaller amounts than typical active
control systems. It may A battery power, for instance, is
sufficient to make them operative. Semi-active control
systems cannot add or remove energy to the structural
system, but can control in real time parameters of the
structure such as spring stiffness or coefficient of viscous
damping. Semi-active devices are often viewed as
controllable passive devices.
Semi-active control system for vehicle
suspensions

Active and semi-active control systems indirectly increase fuel consumption due to high energy
consumption of sensors and actuators. Furthermore their initial and maintenance costs are high.
Therefore, as far as fuel consumption and cost is concerned, passive systems are advantageous over
control systems. That’s why, the passive control system is chosen for the study because it is
relatively inexpensive and it consumes no external energy. (AYDAN, 2010)

Schematic of various auxiliary damping devices utilizing inertial effects.

(Con: controller, a: actuator, Ex: excitation, S: sensor)

The TMD concept was first applied by Frahm in 1909 (Frahm, 1909) to reduce the rolling
motion of ships as well as ship hull vibrations. A theory for the TMD was presented later in the
paper by Ormondroyd and Den Hartog (1928), followed by a detailed discussion of optimal tuning
and damping parameters in Den Hartog’s book on mechanical vibrations (1940). The initial theory
was applicable for an undamped single degree of freedom (SDOF) system subjected to a sinusoidal
force excitation. Extension of the theory to damped SDOF systems has been investigated by
numerous researchers. Significant contributions were made by Randall et al. (1981), Warburton
(1981, 1982), Warburton and Ayorinde (1980), and Tsai and Lin (1993).
One example of the applications of TMDs system can be found at the Taipei Financial Center also
known as Taipei 101 Tower which is in the capital city Taipei, Taiwan as shown in below Figure. Its
height is 508 meters which is the tallest building in the world. The mass of TMD pendulum type is
660 tons and the mass of two TMDs Pinnacle type weighs 4.5 tons each which were installed in
2002. Furthermore, the passive TMD systems were installed in many structures such as Bloomberg
Tower in New York, Gran Canyon Skywalk in Arizona, USA and Shenzhen Bridge in Hong Kong, China.
More applications of TMDs are given in below Table.

Taipei Financial Center

The building itself is built to withstand strong typhoon winds and massive earthquakes and earth
tremors which are common in the area. To give you a better angle on what the building can
accommodate, it has been built to withstand winds of over 130 miles an hour and the strongest
earthquake likely to happen within a 2500 year cycle.

Due to the latest construction technology, the building itself remains rigid yet is able to drift
sideways in strong winds and during earth quakes or earth tremors. This is possible by massive mega
columns which total eight in number and run through the central core of the building. Each of these
columns contains 10,000 PSI of concrete and on every 8th floor there are further support columns
expanded outwards and gripping the outer surface of the property
 Taipei 101 Building TMD Pendulum type Taipei 101 Building Taipei 101 Building Pinnacle TMD

One Rincon Hill is a residential complex on the apex of Rincon Hill

in San Francisco, California, United States. The complex, designed
by Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz and Associates and developed by
Urban West Associates, consists of two skyscrapers that share a
common townhouse podium. One tower, One Rincon Hill North
Tower, is planned to reach a height 495 feet (151 m) with 45
stories. The other tower, One Rincon Hill South Tower, is 60
stories and stands 641 feet (195 m) tall. The South Tower contains
a number of unique elements, such as high-speed elevators for
moving residents effectively, and a large water tank (liquid tuned
mass damper) designed to help the skyscraper withstand strong
winds and earthquakes. Both skyscrapers and the townhomes
contain a total of 709 residential units. One Rincon Hill Building

The damper consists of four concrete, water-filled tanks equipped with baffles to absorb energy. To
determine optimal water levels in the tanks, which have a total capacity of 50,000 gallons, the
structural engineer monitored the building sway with electronic sensors. Contractors began filling
the tanks in early May. The water will double as a supply for firefighters.

One Rincon Hill is the first U.S. residential tower to have a tuned liquid mass
damper to help reduce sway to acceptable comfort levels.
Examples of buildings and structures with tuned mass dampers;

 Bally to Bellagio (hotel and casino)

 Pedestrian Bridges in Las Vegas (Las Vegas)
 Berlin Television Tower (Fernsehturm Berlin): tuned
mass damper located in the spire.
 Bloomberg Tower in New York
 Burj al-Arab in Dubai: 11 tuned mass dampers.
 Citigroup Center in New York City: Designed by
William LeMessurier and completed in 1977, it was
one of the first skyscrapers to use a tuned mass Burj al-Arab in Dubai
damper to reduce sway. Uses a concrete version.
 Comcast Center (office building) in Philadelphia, PA:
Contains the largest Tuned Liquid Column Damper
(TLCD) in the world at 1,300 tons.lt
 Dublin Spire in Dublin, Ireland: This narrow slender
structure was designed with a tuned mass damper to
ensure aerodynamic stability during a wind storm.
 Grand Canyon Skywalk
 John Hancock Tower in Boston: A tuned mass damper
was added to it after it was built. Grand Canyon Skywalk

 London Millennium Bridge: The Wobbly Bridge

 One Rincon Hill: First building in California to have a
liquid tuned mass damper
 One Wall Centre in Vancouver: It employs tuned liquid
column dampers, at the time of its installation, a
unique form of tuned mass damper.
 Park Tower (Chicago) in Chicago: The first building in
the United States to be designed with a tuned mass
damper from the outset.
London Millennium Bridge
 Random House Tower: Uses two liquid filled dampers
in New York City
Theme Building at Los Angeles International
 Sakhalin-I: An oil platform Airport
 Shanghai World Financial Center in Shanghai, China
 Taipei 101 skyscraper: Contains one of the worlds
largest tuned mass dampers, at 730 tons.
 Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport
 Trump World Tower in New York
 Yokohama Landmark Tower (reachinformation)

A discussion of the passive mass dampers used to mitigate the structure motion is presented.
Passive mass dampers are found to be attractive due to their unique advantages such as lower cost,
easy handling, and low maintenance requirements. Furthermore, their natural frequency and
damping characteristics can be easily modified. It has been shown that these passive mass dampers
are extremely versatile in their applications for temporary use, and are easy to adapt for retrofit
schemes for existing structures.
Tuned mass dampers are widely used in production cars,
typically on the crankshaft pulley to control torsional
vibration and bending modes of the crankshaft, on the
driveline for gear whine, and other noises. They are also
used on the exhaust hangers, steering systems, engine
frames and mirrors, body and suspension. Almost all cars will
have one mass damper, some may have 10 or more.

Application of tune mass damper on steering system

The tuned mass damper was introduced as part of the
suspension system by Renault, on its 2005 F1 car (the R25),
at the 2005 Brazilian Grand Prix It was deemed to be legal at
first, and it was in use up to the 2006 German Grand Prix At
Hockenheim, the mass damper was deemed illegal by the
Fédération Internationale de Automobile since the mass
wasn’t rigidly attached to the chassis and, due to the
influence it had on the pitch attitude of the car, which in
turn significantly affected the gap under the car and hence
the ground effect of the car, to be a movable aerodynamic
device and hence as a consequence, to be illegally
influencing the performance of the aerodynamics The
Stewards of the meeting deemed it legal, but the FIA
appealed against that decision. Two weeks later, the FIA
International Court of Appeal deemed the mass damper
illegal.

One proposal to reduce vibration on NASAs Ares-I solid fuel

booster is to use 16 tuned mass dampers as part of a design
strategy to reduce peak loads from 6g to 0.25 g, the TMDs
being responsible for the reduction from 1 g to 0.25 g, the
rest being done by conventional vibration isolation between
the upper stages and the booster
NASA Ares I Rocket
TMDs are also used for the mitigation of rail rutting corrugation, on the hard disc actuators to
reduce vibrations, on flexible marine structures when a ship is berthed, on turning machines to
reduce chattering. It is possible to see examples of TMDs in the nature. Yolk, albumen and shell of an
egg is an example of TMD to protect the embryo. (AYDAN, 2010)

Cross-section of an egg
TMDs are used various applications from aerospace industry to hard disk actuators.

Tuned mass dampers are mainly used in the various applications:

Results so far:

Human responses to whole-body vibration can be evaluated by two main standards which are the
British Standard 6841 (BS 6841) (1987) and the International Standard 2631 (ISO 2631) (1997).

In ISO 2631 standards, ride comfort boundaries defines the maximum time that passengers can
travel without feeling tiredness. If a boundary is exceeded at a frequency value, then passengers in
that vehicle cannot travel more than the time limit specified by the boundary.

Ride Comfort is the general sensation of noise, vibration and motion inside a driving vehicle,
experienced by both the driver as well as the passengers. Road irregularities which are major
sources of vibrations affect the comfort, safety and health of the passengers subjected to it:

 Comfort: the first impression during a test drive is an important criterion when buying a new car,
and therefore represents the first appreciation of the brand image
 Safety: reduced concentration for the driver of a noisy and uncomfortable vehicle after several
hours on the road involves high risks of accidents
 Health: long term exposure to vibrations can cause lower back pain problems for the driver of
trucks, buses or heavy off-road vehicles.
For these reasons, firstly TMDs are used on the automobile suspension systems to improve ride
comfort in this project and ISO ride comfort boundaries are going to be added on graphics which are
obtained. After that they are planning to be used other applications like buildings, bridges…etc

Quarter Car model representation of a real vehicle

Chain of TMDs are used to absorb more energy from the

system to reduce the sprung mass acceleration around
wheel hop and body bounce frequency. Suspension spring
and viscous damper are divided into several parts by
inserting additional plates between the sprung and
unsprung masses and TMDs are added on these plates. The
vibration due to road irregularities and the resonance of
unsprung mass is not directly transmitted to the sprung
mass. At every plate, the TMDs suppress the vibrations and
better performance can be observed with respect to a single
TMD application. (AYDAN, 2010)

In this section the effect of the number of platforms on the

overall ride comfort is investigated. The performance of
chain of LTMDs with = 2 11 is investigated on
sprung mass acceleration vs. frequency plot. In the enlarged
part of the figure, it can be seen that the performance
deterioration is large at frequencies below 7 Hz, for = 1.
As the number of platforms increases, the deterioration Chain of TMDs
initially tend to little increasing but after that quickly reduced again. Ride comfort improvement is
higher at wheel hop frequency when the number of platforms increases and it has also a little
improvement at body bounce frequency.

The chain of TMDs consists of building blocks in below figure. The single TMD configuration is
obviously a chain of TMD with n=1. N is a number of platform and N=n+1.

Our optimization, In order to keep the system in practical limits, the ratio of additional mass to
unsprung mass (mi/Mus) for all configurations is limited to 0.3 initially.
Figure: Effect of Number of Platform on Sprung Mass Acceleration
Objectives and Contributions:

The main purpose in this study is improving human and ride comfort by preventing the systems from
disturbance, discomfort, damage and destruction effects of vibrations. The Results obtained shows
that; TMDs are effective in reducing sprung mass vibrations around "wheel hop" and "body bounce"
frequencies in application of automotive suspension systems. Moreover; these results are catched
up with ISO 2631 ride comfort boundaries. Earthquake-generated vibration always threats to human
life and possessions. For this reason, too much money which can be saved due to expending
application of TMDs is spent in structural industry to Prevents discomfort, damage or structural
failure. All of the configurations in this study are used to optimize in order to get optimal results

References
Ahsan and Navid, B. S. (n.d.). TUNED MASS DAMPER (TMD): A STRUCTURAL CONTROL DEVICE FOR
EARTHQUAKE-THREATENED STRUCTURES.

AYDAN, G. (2010). Ride comfort improvement by application of tuned mass dampers and lever type
vibration isolators. ANKARA.

KELLY, S. G. (2000). Fundamentals of mechanical vibrations. McGraw-Hill Higher Companies.

Mead, D. J. (2000). Passive Vibration Control. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

reachinformation. (n.d.). Retrieved 11 10, 2010, from

http://www.reachinformation.com/define/Tuned_mass_damper.aspx

Yılmaz, Ç. (2005). Analysis and design of uniaxial passive vibration isolators considering stiffness and
bandwidth limitations.