Using a damper amplification factor to increase energy dissipation in structures

AbstractFluid dampers are an important tool for dissipating unwanted vibrations in a range of engineering structures. This paper examines the effects of amplifying the displacements transferred to a non-linear damper, to increase the effectiveness of the damper in a range of situations commonly encountered in civil engineering structures. These include, (i) the ability to “fine tune” the required damping for a particular size damper, (ii) the ability to have a set of the same size dampers, but with different amplification factors to achieve a specific damping task, and (iii) to increase the sensitivity of the damper to small movements which effectively extends the range over which the damper works. Through numerical simulations and experimental tests conducted on a non-linear damper, we quantify the potential advantages of adding an amplification factor and the range of parameters where the benefit to this device is significant. The example of a two-storey structure is used as a test case and real-time dynamic substructuring tests are used to assess the complete system performance using a range of different amplification factors. The results show that the structural performance is most improved for frequencies close to resonance and that the amplification factor has an effective limit that for the case considered in this study is of approximately 3. The effects of the mechanism compliance are also assessed

Influence of Variable Side-Stay Geometry on the Shimmy Dynamics of an Aircraft Dual-Wheel Main Landing Gear

Commercial aircraft are designed to fly but also need to operate safely and efficiently as vehicles on the ground. During taxiing, take-off, and landing the landing gear must operate reliably over a wide range of forward velocities and vertical loads. Specifically, it must maintain straight rolling under a wide variety of operating conditions. It is well known, however, that under certain conditions the wheels of the landing gear may display unwanted oscillations, referred to as shimmy oscillations, during ground maneuvers. Such oscillations are highly unwanted from a safety and a ride-comfort perspective. In this paper we conduct a study into the occurrence of shimmy oscillations in a main landing gear (MLG) of a typical midsize passenger aircraft. Such a gear is characterized by a main strut attached to the wing spar with a side-stay that connects the main strut to an attachment point closer to the fuselage center line. Nonlinear equations of motion are developed for the specific case of a two-wheeled MLG configuration and allow for large angle deflections within the geometrical framework of the system. The dynamics of the MLG are expressed in terms of three degrees of freedom: torsional motion, in-plane motion, and out-of-plane motion (with respect to the side-stay plane). These are modeled by oscillators that are coupled directly through the geometric configuration of the system as well as through the tire/ground interface, which is modeled here by the von Schlippe stretched string approximation of the tire dynamics. The mathematical model is fully parameterized and parameters are chosen to represent a generic (rather than a specific) landing gear. In particular, the positions of the attachment points are fully parameterized so that any orientation of the side-stay plane can be considered. The occurrence of shimmy oscillations is studied by means of a two-parameter bifurcation analysis of the system in terms of the forward velocity of the aircraft and the vertical force acting on the gear. The effect of a changing side-stay plane orientation angle on the bifurcation diagram is investigated. We present a consistent picture that captures the transition of the two-parameter bifurcation diagram as a function of this angle, with a considerable complexity of regions of different types of shimmy oscillations for intermediate and realistic side-stay plane orientations. In particular, we find a region of tristability in which stable torsional, in-plane, and out-of-plane shimmy oscillations coexist

Supporting brace sizing in structures with added linear viscous fluid dampers: A filter design solution

Viscous fluid dampers have proved to be effective in suppressing unwanted vibrations in a range of engineering structures. When dampers are fitted in a structure, a brace is typically used to attach them to the main structure. The stiffness of this brace can significantly alter the effectiveness of the damper, and in structures with multiple dampers, this can be a complex scenario to model. In this paper, we demonstrate that the effects of the brace compliance on the damper performance can be modelled by way of a first-order filter. We use this result to formulate a procedure that calculates the stiffness required by the supporting brace to provide a specified effectiveness of the damping action. The proposed procedure assumes that viscous dampers have been sized in a previous design step based on any optimal methodology in which, as is usually the case, the presence of supporting braces and their dynamic effects were neglected. Firstly considering a one degree-of-freedom system, we show that the proposed method ensures a desired level of damper efficiency for all frequencies within a selected bandwidth. Then the analysis is extended to the case of multi-degree-of-freedom systems to show that the design criteria can be applied in a straightforward and successful manner to more complex structures

A bifurcation study to guide the design of a landing gear with a combined uplock/downlock mechanism

This paper discusses the insights that a bifurcation analysis can provide when designing mechanisms. A model, in the form of a set of coupled steady-state equations, can be derived to describe the mechanism. Solutions to this model can be traced through the mechanism's state versus parameter space via numerical continuation, under the simultaneous variation of one or more parameters. With this approach, crucial features in the response surface, such as bifurcation points, can be identified. By numerically continuing these points in the appropriate parameter space, the resulting bifurcation diagram can be used to guide parameter selection and optimization. In this paper, we demonstrate the potential of this technique by considering an aircraft nose landing gear, with a novel locking strategy that uses a combined uplock/downlock mechanism. The landing gear is locked when in the retracted or deployed states. Transitions between these locked states and the unlocked state (where the landing gear is a mechanism) are shown to depend upon the positions of two fold point bifurcations. By performing a two-parameter continuation, the critical points are traced to identify operational boundaries. Following the variation of the fold points through parameter space, a minimum spring stiffness is identified that enables the landing gear to be locked in the retracted state. The bifurcation analysis also shows that the unlocking of a retracted landing gear should use an unlock force measure, rather than a position indicator, to de-couple the effects of the retraction and locking actuators. Overall, the study demonstrates that bifurcation analysis can enhance the understanding of the influence of design choices over a wide operating range where nonlinearity is significant