Metamaterial-Based Vibration Suppression of Beams

We investigate the nonlinear vibrations of a metamaterial structure that consists of a host Euler–Bernoulli beam attached to a periodic array of spring–mass–damper subsystems deployed for vibration absorption. The main objective is to demonstrate that the capability of the metastructure to suppress vibration can be significantly enhanced when the absorbers are tuned to the optimal frequency. The results show that the simultaneous suppression of several modes is possible by tuning and properly placing each absorber along the host structure. Furthermore, the impact of the resonators on the nonlinear behavior of the main structure when subjected to external forcing over an extended frequency range is investigated. The numerical study reveals that proper tuning of the local resonators allows significant vibration suppression of the metamaterial beam when being excited in the neighborhood of the natural frequencies. The optimization results show that significant mitigation can be achieved by tuning properly the absorbers in the vicinity of the host structure’s natural frequencies.