Pendulum as vibration absorber for flexible structures: Experiments and theory

The dynamic response of a beam-tip mass-pendulum system subjected to a sinusoidal excitation is investigated. A simple pendulum mounted to a tip mass of a beam is used as a vibration absorber. The nonlinear equations of motion are developed to investigate the autoparametric interaction between the first two modes of the system. The nonlinear terms appear due to the curvature of the beam and the coupling effect between the beam and pendulum. Complete energy transfer between modes is shown to occur when the beam frequency is twice the pendulum frequency. Experimental results are compared with a theoretical solution obtained using numerical integration. The experimental results are in qualitative agreement with the theory.