Abstract
The technique of a bean bag damper has been effectively applied in many engineering fields to control the vibroimpact of a structural system. In this study, the basic parameters responsible for the design of an effective bean bag: the size of beans, the mass ratio of the bean bag to the structure to which it is attached, the clearance distance and the position of the bag, are studied by both theoretical and experimental analyses. These will provide a better understanding of the performance of the bean bag for optimisation of damper design. It was found that reducing the size of beans would increase the exchange of momentum in the system due to the increase in the effective contact areas. Within the range of mass ratios studied, the damping performance of the damper was found to improve with higher mass ratios. There was an optimum clearance for any specific damper whereby the maximum attenuation could be achieved. The position of the bag with respect to nodes and antipodes of the primary structure determined the magnitude of attenuation attainable. Furthermore, the limitations of bean bags have been identified and a general criteria for the design of a bean bag damper has been formulated based on the study undertaken. It was shown that an appropriately configured bean bag damper was capable of reducing the amplitude of vibration by 80% to 90%.