Design Strategies of Particle Dampers for Large-Scale Applications

Particle dampers are dynamic vibration absorbers that can be attached or inserted into a vibrating structure for broadband vibration attenuation. The particle damping technique is widely used across various industries for vibration attenuation because of its conceptual simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and suitability for harsh environments (Gagnon et al. in J Sound Vib, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsv.2019.114865 ; Lu et al. in Struct Control Health Monit, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1002/stc.2058 ). However, designing a particle damper for real-world applications is significantly challenging primarily due to the interaction among the numerous parameters that influence the damping effectiveness of a particle damper. Therefore, this contribution aims to experimentally investigate the particle dampers performance in the context of their designs. We introduce three different design variants, namely thin-walled cavity (TWC), thin-walled cavity with additional sheets (TWC-AS), and ring cavity (RC). Different strategies are detailed and evaluated in the current paper. Following the comprehensive study of various design variants at the laboratory scale, several tests were conducted on a real-scale wind turbine generator, subjected to real-world loading conditions. Additionally, the effect of particle damper size and its location for the structure on vibration attenuation has been studied. Based on the experimental investigation, all these variants are effective in reducing the vibration amplitude of a structure. Furthermore, it has been found that for practical applications, particularly in the case of large-scale mechanical structures such as wind turbines, it is advisable to combine the most successful variants to design a particle damper. This approach can achieve significant vibration attenuation, and also minimize the additional mass of the granular material compared to a conventional particle damper. The findings from our experimental studies offer valuable insight into the design of particle dampers for large-scale hollow mechanical structures.