39th Solid Mechanics Conference - SolMech 2014

1. The subject and the goals of the study Problems of structures subjected to loads travelling with high velocity are of a special interest for practicing engineers. Numerous of analytical and numerical solutions are applied to solve the problems of transportation and robotic systems with a single or multi-point interactions such as train-track, vehicle-bridge or effector-guideway. These problems concern high vibration levels of both structures and travelling objects due to permanently increasing speed and load carrying capacity requirements. The construction of new railway tracks or bridges with sufficiently higher load carrying capacity and ability to withstand dynamical stresses and strains is usually limited by costs. On the other hand, a static strengthening increases structure mass and often is restricted for technological reasons. To face undesired vibration effects a variety of control systems acting on both vehicle suspensions and structures have been proposed and put into practice. Active vehicle suspension systems are based on controlled rheological dampers that tend to improve the travelling comfort by keeping the passage trajectory as smooth and straight as possible [1]. For structural control, the objective is usually centered on a structure itself. Heavy and high power consumed force actuators are attached to a structure to stabilize it in the case of dangerous external excitations that occur, for instance, during earthquakes. A recent trend is to replace force actuators with semi-active rheological dampers. These solutions attract the engineers' interest due to significantly less power consumption. They are also safer in the case of a control system failure. The use of semi-active supports for the structure subjected to a moving load was first proposed in [2]. By means of numerical simulations the authors demonstrated that for a wide range of travel velocity the switching damping strategies outperform standard passive solution. The idea was later extended in [3] and [4], where by introducing rigorous analysis and optimization techniques the authors concluded that even one switching action for each damper can provide very smooth load passages. The total deflection of the load trajectory from the straight line was reduced up to 50%. The goal of this study is to design an efficient and easy for implementation feedback control system based on change of both damping and stiffness of structure supports. The system will be split into modules (often identified as " plug and play " tools). The function-ality and incorporated computational procedures for every module will be the same. …