H∞ optimization of dynamic vibration absorber variant for vibration control of damped linear systems

This study focuses on the H∞ optimal design of a dynamic vibration absorber (DVA) variant for suppressing high-amplitude vibrations of damped primary systems. Unlike traditional DVA configurations, the damping element in this type of DVA is connected directly to the ground instead of the primary mass. First, a thorough graphical analysis of the variations in the maximum amplitude magnification factor depending on two design parameters, natural frequency and absorber damping ratios, is performed. The results of this analysis clearly show that any fixed-points-theory-based conventional method could provide, at best, only locally but not globally optimal parameters. Second, for directly handling the H∞ optimization for its optimal design, a novel meta-heuristic search engine, called the diversity-guided cyclic-network-topology-based constrained particle swarm optimization (Div-CNT-CPSO), is developed. The variant DVA system developed using the proposed Div-CNT-CPSO scheme is compared with those reported in the literature. The results of this comparison verified that the proposed system is better than the existing methods for suppressing the steady-state vibration amplitude of a controlled primary system.