Some Recent Developments in Adaptive Tuned Vibration Absorbers/Neutralisers

The vibration absorber has been used for vibration control purposes in many sectors of engineering from aerospace, to automotive to civil, for the past 100 years or so. A limitation of the device, however, is that it acts like a notch filter, only being effective over a narrow band of frequencies. Recent developments have overcome this limitation by making it possible to tune the device over a range of frequencies. This has been achieved by incorporating a variable stiffness element that can be adjusted in real-time. In this paper, some ways in which stiffness change can be achieved in practice are reviewed and some examples of prototype adaptive tuned vibration absorbers (ATVAs) are described. A simple control scheme to automatically tune an ATVA is also presented