Smart friction driven systems

Vibration properties of most assembled mechanical systems depend on frictional damping in joints. The nonlinear transfer behavior of the frictional interfaces often provides the dominant damping mechanism in a built-up structure and plays an important role in the vibratory response of the structure (Gaul and Nitsche 2001 Appl. Mech. Rev. 54 93–105). For improving the performance of systems, many studies have been carried out to predict, measure and/or enhance the energy dissipation of friction. To enhance the friction damping in joint connections a semi-active joint is investigated. A rotational joint connection is designed and manufactured such that the normal force in the friction interface can be influenced with a piezoelectric stack disc. With the piezoelectric device the normal force and thus the friction damping in the joint connection can be controlled. A control design method, namely semi-active control, is investigated. The recently developed LuGre friction model is used to describe the nonlinear transfer behavior of joints. This model is based on a bristle model and turns out to be highly suitable for systems assembled by such smart joints. Those systems can also be regarded as friction driven systems, since the energy flow is controlled by smart joints. The semi-active method is well suited for large space structures since the friction damping in joints turned out to be a major source of damping. To show the applicability of the proposed concept to large space structures a two-beam system representing a part of a large space structure is considered. Two flexible beams are connected with a semi-active joint connection. It can be shown that the damping of the system can be improved significantly by controlling the normal force in the semi-active joint connection. Experimental results validate the damping improvement due to the semi-active friction damping.