Multidomain Vibration-Absorber Design

Vibration absorbers are commonly used in infrastructure assets (e.g. wind turbines, buildings, bridges) and in the dynamic systems which operate on them (e.g. railway and road vehicles). To achieve more structurally resilient, low carbon and lifetime cost efficient infrastructure assets, a step change in the performance of vibration absorbers is urgently needed. There are numerous absorber design possibilities considering components from multiple domains (mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic and electrical). However, because there is no systematic approach available, only an extremely limited number of designs have been studied to date. This fellowship will establish an optimal multidomain vibration-absorber synthesis tool, which will fully unlock the significant potential of vibration absorber designs.

The superiority of the proposed synthesis tool, and the subsequent design improvements, will be demonstrated using industrially driven and supported case studies in three infrastructure sectors. These include the alleviation of wind- and wave-induced loads to wind turbines (wind energy sector); the mitigation of environmental- and human-induced oscillations in buildings and bridges (civil structure sector); the enhancement of vehicle-track and pantograph-catenary interactions (rail sector).

The developed absorber synthesis tool will be applicable to solving the dynamic performance challenges in a wide range of mechanical structures, for example, minimising road damage produced by heavy duty vehicles, vibration mitigation of hydraulic and pneumatic pipelines, and dynamic performance enhancement for robotics and autonomous vehicles. These present a significant opportunity for the PI, UK Academia and UK Industry to establish a world leading capability in this challenging field with unique expertise.

The strong support from the 7 industrial project partners (see Letters of Support) highlight the relevance to their business development strategies and the UK government's industrial strategy (wave 3) to support 'manufacturing made smarter' and 'industrial decarbonisation'.

Specifically, short-term impacts of this fellowship will be in academic areas related to vibration suppression. The proposed multidomain vibration-absorber synthesis tool will significantly advance this field, enable new research opportunities solving the dynamic challenges in both infrastructure assets from different sectors and a wide range of mechanical systems.

Medium-term impacts will be the real-life industrial applications of vibration absorbers with transformed performance in the wind energy, civil structure and rail sectors: the enhanced load alleviation for wind turbines will form a critical maintenance-cost saving pathway and will enable larger-size and further off-shore ones, reducing the UK decarbonisation cost; the vibration mitigation for building and bridge infrastructure assets will significantly enhance their structural efficiency and durability, being critically important for the UK construction to meet the 2025 costs and emissions reduction targets; the enhanced vehicle-track and pantograph-catenary dynamics will effectively reduce the infrastructure renewal and maintenance cost where Network Rail spends £4.2Bn annually, contributing to more reliable and affordable UK rail services. These outcomes will lead to more resilient, low-carbon and cost-efficient infrastructure assets as the key performance outcomes in the UK National Infrastructure Delivery Plan [1].

Longer-term effects will include widespread industrial deployment of developed absorber synthesis tool in other infrastructural sectors and a wider range of mechanical systems, e.g.: minimised road damage caused by heavy duty vehicles; alleviated loads on airplane wings (enabling lighter materials and structures to be used); and enhanced dynamic performance for robotics and autonomous vehicles. Such a step change to the UK's capability for advanced design will assist the UK high-end manufacturing industry to maintain its competitive edge in the face of increasing global competition.

[1] Infrastructure and Projects Authority. National infrastructure delivery plan 2016-2021. 2016.