Suppressing friction-induced stick-slip vibration through a linear PZT-based absorber and energy harvester

In this paper, a PZT (lead zirconate titanate)-based absorber and energy harvester (PAEH) is used for passive control of friction-induced stick-slip vibration in a friction system. Its stability condition coupled with PAEH is analytically derived, whose efficiency is then demonstrated by numerical simulation. The results show that the structural parameters of the PAEH can significantly affect the system stability, which increases with the mass ratio between the PAEH and the primary system, but first increases and then decreases with the natural frequency ratio between the PAEH and the primary system. The impacts of the electric parameters of the PAEH on the system stability are found to be insignificant. In addition, the PAEH can effectively suppress the stick-slip limit cycle magnitude in a wide working parameter range; however, it does not function well for friction systems in all the working conditions. The stick-slip vibration amplitude can be increased in the case of a large loading (normal) force. Finally, an experiment on a tribo-dynamometer validates the findings of the theoretical study, in which the vibration reduction and energy harvesting performance of the PAEH is fully demonstrated.