What is vibration?

Vibration is the mechanical oscillations of an object about an equilibrium point. The oscillations may be regular such as the motion of a pendulum or random such as the movement of a tire on a gravel road. The study of health effects of vibration require measures of the overall "pressure waves" that are generated by vibrating equipment or structure. Vibration enters the body from the organ in contact with vibrating equipment. When a worker operates hand-held equipment such as a chain saw or jackhammer, vibration affects hands and arms. Such an exposure is called hand-arm vibration exposure. When a worker sits or stands on a vibrating floor or seat, the vibration exposure affects almost the entire body and is called whole-body vibration exposure. Any vibration has two measurable quantities. How far (amplitude or intensity), and how fast (frequency) the object moves helps determine its vibrational characteristics. The terms used to describe this movement are frequency, amplitude and acceleration.

In this assignment, we choose aircraft structure as engineering vibration system to explain about how vibration occurs and how to reduce it.

Aircraft Structure
There are a lot of factors that contribute the vibration in aircraft. The most significant contributor is engine and surrounding situation such as air turbulence. y In an aircraft engine installation, an imbalance in the rotating machinery creates oscillating forces applied to the structure, thus generating structural vibration, as depicted below. The consequence of the rotating imbalances of the engines manifests itself through the structural vibration of the fuselage, which induces noise in the cabin as shown.

When there is turbulence wind gust, the turbulence wind will cause resonance to the vibrating aircraft, thus it will increase the vibration on the aircraft itself.

Increasing the air speed also cause the vibration. When the speed increases, the engine will work harder and it will increase more vibration. The wind also acts as a resonance an increase the vibration.

The Principal of Vibration

We can treat the whole aircraft as springs. Where by in this case, when the aircraft is not moving, it same as a spring at it original position. Then when the aircraft engine started, the aircraft structure will have maximum potential energy. It same goes to the spring when we pull it, we give the potential energy to the spring. After we release the load, the spring will vibrate, thus it will change from potential to kinetic energy. This phenomena also experience by the aircraft after the engine was started. The aircraft will vibrate and the vibration on the aircraft structure will change the energy from potential energy to kinetic energy.

Effect from Vibration (product)

y Reduced coordination. Vibration degrades aircrew members ability to perform simple tasks during flight. Manual coordination and control "touch" is degraded. A pilot can induce oscillations when he or she over-controls during turbulence and/or transition from a hover to flight. y Degraded vision. Vision could be degraded due to vibration in the aircraft shaking instruments may be difficult to read. Furthermore, helmet mount or night vision devices may vibrate and adding to visual disturbances. y Deformation in aircraft structure. Fatigue can easily occur to the wing because wing produces a lot of force other than fuselage. y Dislocation in aircraft structure. This can happened at the joint of the aircraft.

Reducing the Effects of Vibration?

Vibration cannot be eliminated, but its effects on human performance and physiological functions can be lessened: Proper aircraft maintenance y Proper aircraft maintenance on aircraft structure, such the crucial part such as engine or propeller whereby they produce lot of vibrations. With constant check-up the technician can detect any abnormally that cause this unwanted vibrations. Using better material y In order to reduce the vibrations, the material itself should damp the vibrations. So that why, stiffed material is needed. This material has a characteristic like rubber, whereby it can absorb energy. Hard Mounted Structure y A structure used to attach an engine to an airframe has a certain level of flexibility. A hard mounted system is not infinitely rigid and therefore can be somewhat effective in reducing vibration as it travels through the structure.

Example of hard attachment structure

Reference
1. Aircraft Engine Attachment and Vibration Control, By Jesse DePriest,
Lord Corporation

2. Wikipedia 3. Operator-based Vibration Control for Aircraft Vertical Tail,

Changan Jiang, Mingcong Deng and Takashi Tomono

4. Fundamentals of Vibrations, Leonard Meirovitch