Versatile mass excited impact oscillator

This paper presents the design and the initial experimental results of a novel impact oscillator rig developed by the Centre of Applied Dynamic Research at the University of Aberdeen. In this rig, the excitation force is generated electromagnetically and it acts directly on the mass in contrast to the most of the experimental set-ups where the excitation passes through the structure. This significantly enhances flexibility of the system allowing to observe subtle phenomena. The evolution of the design from an initial concept to the finalised rig is discussed in details where a special attention is paid to the instrumentation and parameter identification which are important for the mathematical modelling. The initial experimental results demonstrate potentials of this rig to study fundamental impact phenomena, which have been observed in various engineering systems. They also indicate that this new rig can be a good platform for investigating nonlinear control methods.