Design of a smart interface for vibration reduction in complex structures

INTRODUCTION Operational vibrations, dynamic characteristics and mechanical loading of structures are intrinsically coupled. One typical example is the excitation of strong local strains at weakly damped Eigenfrequencies and modal shapes. Thus, vibrations and structure dynamic characteristics both have a strong impact on structures' durability. On the other hand, both define the safety and comfort of systems. One safety example is the excitation of wobbling of motorcycles resulting in handling problems and potentially in accidents while for comfort an example is the consumer's sensed product quality features such as NVH characteristics, e.g. vibroacoustics of automobiles. The latter is a very primary field of interest in current automotive product optimization. Consequently, limiting vibrations and properly designing the structure dynamic system characteristics is of main importance while designing and optimizing technical products, thus for ensuring competitive advantages. Steadily increasing demands on lightweight design and structure dynamic qualities bring conventional passive structure technologies to its limits. Increasing e.g. NVH qualities normally leads to an unacceptable increase of mass and / or volume, thus limiting the optimization process of products. This is true not only for automotive products but for a variety of product branches such as railway, infrastructure, optics, defense, space, etc.