In this study, a control algorithm was developed to suppress the free vibration amplitude of a cantilever beam with time-varying dynamic characteristics. In other words, since it is assumed that the natural frequency and mode shape of the vibrating structure are not fixed, the system model of the vibrating structure was not used in the control algorithm. A single electromagnet was chosen as the actuator, so the attractive force was applied to only one fixed location in the structure. Through experiments, the proposed control algorithm is proven to effectively suppress the amplitude of vibration even when the dynamic characteristics of the cantilever beam change. Contrary to the usual active vibration control method, the proposed algorithm is just simple and intuitive without complicated mathematics in the modeling and control process. However, the proposed control method is very effective to suppress the vibration even when the dynamic characteristics of the target structure is not exactly known, as is often the case in industries or laboratories.

The attempt of this paper is to examine the basic theory on the analysis of the effect of a shading coil fitted to an electromagnetic contactor, and to compare experimentally the attracting force of an AC electromagnetic contactor with that of a DC electromagnetic contactor, with varying the airgap length. Equations are also proposed for calculating the AC and DC attracting force per unit consumption wattage by using the circuit constants measured from the experiment, and these calculated attracting forces are compared with those actulally measured, and then, the experimental contactor is examined in the view of its design. The calculated attracting forces are appeared to coincide well with the measured ones and the experimental contactor fitted with shading coil is revealed not so well designed for reducing the fluctuation of the attracting force.