Enhanced utilization of structural damping of beam-like structures by using state-dependent impulsive moments

In the present contribution, the possibilities of transferring vibration energy from lower to higher modes of vibration of a beam-like structure by applying impulsively shaped moments are investigated. It is shown that with this concept, the enhanced damping capacities of higher modes can be utilized more effectively, resulting in a faster decay of transient vibrations compared to the autonomous case. The impulsive excitation is designed to be state-dependent in a way that neither energy is extracted from the mechanical system, nor external energy is fed to the system across impulses. The applied modelling approach results in a non-smooth system description which allows to design the impulsive actuation a-priori.