The vibration control for a reciprocating compressor as well as piping has always been a challenge. Because of compact installation and limited space for the skid mounted compressor unit, it is difficult to arrange a piping support freely or change the piping layout. A new type of adjustable dynamic vibration absorber (DVA), consisting of an annular clamp and several discrete spring-mass systems (DVA subsystem), was proposed to solve this problem. The spring-mass system of this new DVA used the electromagnet and leaf spring equipped with linear slideway, which permitted continuous adjustment of the DVAโs natural frequency by means of variation of the mass and change of the electromagnetโs position. The finite element models of the piping with DVA was established to analyze the harmonic responses in the case of pre- and post- installation of DVA so as to validate the DVA performance of vibration suppression. The results showed that this DVA could suppress vibration effectively at original resonance frequency. Compared with the traditional DVA, multiple distributed units of DVA subsystems in an annular clamp could obtain a much wider frequency band, which overcame the defect that two resonance peaks appeared after installing the traditional DVA. The results also showed that this DVA, equipped with multiple sets of DVA subsystems with different natural frequencies, had an effective vibration suppression for the piping vibration simultaneously excited by multiple resonant frequencies. The study indicates that this novel adjustable DVA can effectively damp the piping vibration of the skid mounted compressor unit
