Influence of a Pendulum Absorber on the Nonlinear Behavior and Instabilities of a Tall Tower

In this paper, passive and hybrid control devices are used to improve the dynamic response of a tall tower. A pendulum attached to the top of the tower is used as a vibration absorber. The tower is modeled as a bar with variable cross-section with concentrated masses. First, the vibration modes and frequencies of the tower are obtained analytically. The primary structure and absorber together constitute a coupled system which is discretized as a two degrees of freedom nonlinear system, using the normalized eigenfunctions and the Rayleigh-Ritz method. In order to improve the effectiveness of the control during the transient response, a hybrid control system is suggested. The added control force is implemented as a non-linear variable stiffness device based on position and velocity feedback. The obtained results show that this strategy of nonlinear control is attractive, has a good potential and can be used to minimize the response of slender structures under various types of excitation.