Study on excitation force characteristics in a coupled shaker-structure system considering structure modes coupling

The interaction between an elastic structure and electrodynamic shakers commonly exists in Ground Flutter Simulation Tests (GFST) with multi-point excitations, causing a considerable discrepancy between the practical excitation forces and desired ones. To investigate the excitation force characteristics on a cantilever beam excited by a voltage-sourced electrodynamic shaker, the coupled shaker-beam system is modeled to derive the excitation force formula using Hamilton’s principle and Galerkin’s approach. Simulation results using the multi-mode beam model coupled with the shaker model are in good agreement with experimental results, verifying that the proposed multi-mode method can accurately predict the excitation force. Furthermore, parametric studies show that the influence of system parameters on the excitation force is related to the shaker’s operating mode. Unlike in current mode of shaker, when the beam resonant frequency approaches the suspension frequency of shaker armature, the variation of excitation force amplitude in voltage mode is no longer minimal. Meanwhile, if the exciting point in the GFST is located far away from the modal node, it is essential to compensate the force because the accuracy of tests can be reduced dramatically. The coupled shaker-beam model proposed in this paper can provide the basis for compensation measures.