An inerter-enhanced nonlinear energy sink

This short communication proposes a novel nonlinear energy sink (NES) equipped with an inerter for passive vibration control of structures and presents the results related to the performance evaluation of this device. NESs are considered to be robust and effective passive control devices that can resonate in a broadband fashion. The configuration of the proposed nonlinear energy sink-inerter (NESI) is that of a traditional NES with an inerter between the device's physical mass and a fixed point. Through the conversion of relative translational motion to rotational motion, the inerter is capable of providing an effective mass effect to the NESI. The optimum design values of the proposed device are achieved through a numerical search and the effect of the inerter on the response of the primary structure is presented. It was found that the effectiveness of the NESI can be substantially increased, compared to the NES, by using increasingly large values of inertance. As these results can be achieved by utilizing an inerter with a small physical mass, the NESI has potential to provide similar or better structural control performance as a NES that has more physical mass. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.