Industrial robots with long structures have vibration problems in rapid stop motion. Generally, dynamic absorbers with springs and dampers are added to reduce vibration. Although we hypothesized that the dynamic absorber built into a 3D-printed beam would have a high damping capability. In this study, we propose a monolithic beam structure with damping capability. The beam incorporates embedded plate springs and internal masses that function as a dynamic absorber. These components are placed in a space which removed mass by topology optimization. We carried out a free vibration experiment to evaluate damping capability of the beam. The experimental method involved applying an initial displacement to the test specimen and measuring the damping behavior using a laser displacement sensor. Experiments were performed on specimens with plate spring thicknesses ranging from 0.8 mm to 1.4 mm in 0.2 mm increments. The highest damping performance was observed at a thickness of 1.0 mm. Additional experiments were conducted using dynamic absorber masses of 30 g, 35 g, 42 g, 49 g, and 58 g. The results showed no significant differences in damping performance among these specimens. This suggests that, under the conditions of this study, variations in the absorber mass have only a minor effect on the vibration damping capability.
Arima et al. (Wed,) studied this question.