Varying the stiffness of a beam-like neutralizer under fuzzy logic control

Vibration neutralizers are effective vibration control devices at a single frequency. If they can compensate for drift in the excitation frequency by adjusting their stiffness the performance can be improved, and the range of problems to which they can be applied is broadened. This paper considers a beam-like adaptive vibration neutralizer; and it is shown that the stiffness of the device and hence its natural frequency can be significantly altered by varying the beam cross-section. Several different beam configurations are investigated and the rate of change of stiffness as a function of beam separation is calculated for each configuration. The results are validated by some simple experiments. Real-time stiffness control of a beam-like tuneable neutralizer is also demonstrated both by computer simulation and experiment. The neutralizer is subjected to swept sine excitation over a six-second period and the tuned condition is maintained throughout the excitation period. The efficacy of using a nonlinear fuzzy logic controller is compared with the use of a simple proportional controller.