Optimum vibration control design of light weight structure in wide frequency domain (passive vibration control design by optimization of both constrained viscoelastic material and light reinforced structural member simultaneously)

Although there are many researches about vibration reduction of panel by making use of constrained viscoelastic materials, there are almost no research on lightweight panel for the vibration reduction throughout the low to high frequency domain whose dynamic properties might be affected by the weight and rigidity of constrained viscoelastic damping materials. There is also little work to optimize both parameters of constrained viscoelastic materials and light reinforced structural materials simultaneously. In this research, above-mentioned lightweight structure such as a solar paddle of a small satellite is of interest. For a lightweight structure like a paddle, the use of vibration control devices are not practical because of its cost and increase of mass, and then large modification of structure is not also practical. Furthermore, large response in high frequency domain is very critical for such structures from the viewpoint of fatigue. The objective of this research is to propose an optimum vibration control design method throughout the low to high frequency domain by considering parameters of the thickness and pasting regions for the constrained viscoelastic materials and also the position and shape for the stiff ener simultaneously by making use of Response Surface Method and Genetic Algorithm. Through the designs of a solar paddle of a small satellite, the effectiveness of the proposed method was demonstrated in comparison with other four methods including the conventional way.