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This study introduces an Asymmetric Nonlinear Energy Sink (ANES) to enhance robust Targeted Energy Transfer (TET) in vibration control. Traditional cubic Nonlinear Energy Sinks (NES) often struggle with varying excitation levels in random vibrations. The ANES integrates a cubic NES, extra inertia, and asymmetric stiffness components like a tension-only rope, two linear springs, and a viscous damper. The rope adds asymmetric stiffness by only applying tension force. This setup effectively absorbs vibrational energy across different levels of excitation, facilitating energy transfer from low-damped to high-damped modes. Numerical simulations demonstrate the ANES’s superior performance compared to traditional NES, supported by modal energy redistribution, Nonlinear Normal Modes (NNM) analysis, and Frequency-Energy Plots (FEP). These findings suggest that this type of ANES is a promising advancement for practical NES applications in vibration control.

This study is focused on robust design optimization (RDO) of the tuned mass dampers (TMDs), which are widely used as a passive vibration controller in structural systems. The performance of the TMDs designed under the implicit assumption that all relevant system parameters (such as loading and structural characteristics) are deterministic is greatly affected by the inevitable inherent uncertainties in the system parameters. In this regard, a framework is proposed for the RDO of TMDs to determine its optimal solution which is less sensitive to system parameter variability. RDO is defined as a multi-objective optimization problem that aims to minimize the mean and variance of the performance function. In the case of multiple TMDs, the proposed framework uniquely avoids the presumption of their mass distribution, number, and placement location. In the proposed RDO framework, an augmented formulation is adopted wherein the design parameters are artificially introduced as uncertain variables with some prescribed probability density function (PDF) over the design space. The resulting optimization problem is solved using the stochastic subset optimization (SSO) and KN, a direct search optimization method. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is studied by analyzing four illustrative examples involving a single TMD attached to a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) structure, a single TMD attached to a multiple-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) structure, multiple TMDs attached to an MDOF structure, and an 80-story structure equipped with multiple TMDs.

Vibration suppression and stability control are classic issues in the field of vibration and control. The nonlinear energy sink (NES) is an effective approach for vibration reduction proposed in recent years. It has the advantages of wide frequency vibration isolation properties and without inputting excessive energy. This paper focuses on the stability and passive vibration control of a plate in subsonic airflow by applying the NES. Two kinds of NESs with linear stiffness and with cubic stiffness are proposed and their vibration control performances are compared. The kinetic equations of the plate with NES are established by using the extended Hamilton principle and analyzed by the incremental harmonic balance (IHB) method. The advantages of the hybrid stiffness NES are demonstrated by comparing with the cubic nonlinear stiffness NES. From the results, the vibration suppression effect of the hybrid stiffness NES is more significant than the purely cubic one. However, the effective vibration reduction range of the cubic stiffness NES is wider than the hybrid one. The optimal design parameters of the NES and the effect of the installation position are also discussed.