Applied mechanics; Dynamics and Vibrations

Mode-coupling instabilities are known to trigger self-excited vibrations in sliding contacts. Here, the conditions for mode-coupling (or "flutter") instability in the contact between a spherical oscillator and a moving viscoelastic substrate are studied. The work extends the classical 2-Degrees-Of-Freedom conveyor belt model and accounts for viscoelastic dissipation in the substrate, adhesive friction at the interface and non-linear normal contact stiffness as derived from numerical simulations based on a boundary element method capable of accounting for linear viscoelastic effects.

Achieving high damping and stiffness is challenging in common materials because of their inter-dependent scaling. Controlling extreme mechanical waves requires synergistically enhanced damping and stiffness. We demonstrate superior damping and stiffness in vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) foams that are also independently controllable by exploiting their synthesis-tailored structural hierarchy and structural gradients. They exhibit frequency- and amplitude-dependent responses with dramatically tunable dynamic stiffness while maintaining constant damping.

Self-excited vibrations represent a big concern in engineering, particularly in automotive, railway and aeronautic industry. Many lumped models have been proposed over the years to analyze the stability of such systems. Among the instability mechanisms a falling characteristic of the friction law and mode coupling have been shown to give friction-excited oscillations. The mass-on-moving-belt system has been studied extensively in Literature, very often adopting a prescribed form of the friction law and linearizing the contact stiffness.

We would like to invite contributions to a session on current and future needs in sub-microscale vibration analysis at the 2019 Engineering Mechanics Institute Conference at the California Institute of Technology.

Please see call for presentations attached.

Thank you.

Arzhang Alimoradi, Ph.D., P.E.

This paper presents a mathematical model for an industry-inspired problem of vibration isolation applied to elastic fluid-filled containers. A fundamental problem of suppression of vibrations within a finite-width frequency interval for a multi-scale fluid-solid system has been solved. We have developed a systematic approach employing full fluid-solid interaction and dispersion analysis, which can be applied to finite and periodic multi-scale systems.

New test data in a 2013 conference paper. Details in the attached file.