Broadband vibration damping using highly distributed tuned mass absorbers

The effectiveness of strain based damping treatments may be significantly affected by the presence of inplane tensile loads, which can lead to transverse vibration modes that involve very little dynamic strain in the base structure. Inertial dampers, by contrast, respond to the motion of the base structure, irrespective of the mechanism responsible for the motion. Using a large number of inertial absorbers distributed in space and in frequency, a broadband damper can be designed to provide energy dissipation over a specific frequency band that is immune to the adverse effects of inplane tensile loads