Vibration Control Strategy of Rotor System Using Variable Stiffness Support

This paper focuses on vibration control strategies utilizing active variable stiffness support for rotor systems in aero-engine structures, which aims to mitigate the negative impact of multi-order resonance on structural reliability. Within the framework of optimal control, two variable stiffness control strategies, i.e., Bang-Bang control and gradient control of support stiffness, are designed. The latter can be further divided into two cases, gradient control with speed holding and gradient control without speed holding. The effectiveness of each control strategy is evaluated through simulations on the vibration control of a multi-support flexible rotor. The results indicate that the variable stiffness strategy of Bang-Bang control can achieve a resonance peak attenuation rate of 80%. However, this control strategy demands a high reaction of the controller. On the other hand, the support stiffness gradient control enables a progressive change in support stiffness, which can achieve a resonance peak reduction rate of 25% under the same working condition. A suitable support stiffness gradient control strategy is chosen for engineering applications, and the efficacy of this approach is verified through experimentation with a rotor tester that utilizes shape memory alloy (SMA) to achieve variable stiffness support.