Free-Free Vibration Extraction From Available Vibration Data

This paper presents a procedure for identifying the free-free vibration data of a structure from the available vibration data of the same structure with boundary conditions. For a structure in a mechanical system, depending upon the dynamic formulation used, we may need a set of free-free modal data or a set of constrained modal data. If a finite element model of the structure is available, its vibration data can be obtained analytically under any desired boundary conditions. However, if a finite element model is not available, the vibration data may be determined experimentally. Since experimentally measured vibration data are obtained for a structure supported by some form of boundary conditions, we may need to determine its free-free vibration data. The aim of this study is to extract, based on experimentally obtained vibration data, the necessary free-free frequencies and the associated modes for structures to be used in dynamic formulations. The available vibration data may be obtained for a structure supported either by springs or by fixed boundary conditions. Furthermore, the available modes may be either a complete set; i.e., as many modes as the number of degrees of freedom of the associated FE model is available, or it can be an incomplete set.