Identification of the tip mass parameters in a beam-tip mass system using response surface methodology

Abstract

Abstract In this study, a response surface based approach is introduced to determine the physical parameters of the tip mass of a beam – tip mass system, such as mass, mass moment of inertia and coordinates of the centre of gravity with respect to the beam end point. To this end, first, a difference function was formulated based on the differences between the peak frequencies and peak amplitudes of the experimental and analytical frequency response functions. Later, observation points were established in the design space using orthogonal arrays, and a response surface was developed using the difference function values at these points. Next, the tip mass parameters were determined by minimizing the response surface with genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization as well as fmincon, a gradient-based solver of the Matlab program. For comparison purposes, those parameters were obtained by also direct minimization of the difference function with the same algorithms. It was concluded that the tip mass parameters were successfully determined within reasonable error limits by the response surface method with less computational burden. Finally, the effect of design space width on the response surface quality is demonstrated numerically.