Electromechanical semi-passive nonlinear tuned mass damper for efficient vibration damping

Vibrations often lead to fatigue or damage which is harmful to structures. In order to efficiently limit such vibrations, Tuned Mass Dampers (TMD) have been investigated since the last century. In this study, a new concept for TMD design is proposed, which combines an electromechanical TMD featuring piezoelectric elements with the nonlinear Synchronized Switch Damping on Inductor (SSDI) semi-passive technique. The proposed electromechanical semi-passive nonlinear TMD includes a switching circuit connected in parallel to the piezoelectric element which is periodically turned on for a brief time period in order to quickly invert the piezovoltage. Theoretical investigations using a Two-Degree of Freedom (TDOF) model and Finite Element (FE) approach, validated through experimental measurements, demonstrated that the proposed electromechanical semi-passive nonlinear TMD significantly outperforms purely mechanical TMDs and electromechanical passive TMDs with same dynamical parameters, allowing to further improve the control performance of such techniques.