Tunable mass damper for use with a reaction wheel assembly
AssigneeHoneywell International Inc.
InventorsZach Rogers, Ryan Goold, Mario Gonzalez
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A tunable mass damper (TMD) is provided that can be coupled to a rotating inertia apparatus such as a reaction wheel assembly (RWA). The TMD includes a housing that contains a flexure, a mass, and damping fluid within the housing. The housing is coupled to the flexure, and the flexure is coupled to the mass. The mass is free to sway in the damping fluid. The damping fluid envelops the mass and provides damping between the mass and the housing. At least one of the mass, flexure and the damping fluid can be adjusted to tune the TMD to produce a resonance at or near a mode that is to be mitigated by the TMD such that it operates at a desired or optimal operating frequency.
Claims20
An assembly, comprising:
- a reaction wheel assembly (RWA) comprising a rotor and a plurality of bearings that allow the rotor to rotate;
- and
- a tunable mass damper (TMD), externally mounted to the RWA, and being designed to reduce one or more of force and torque communicated to the bearings, the TMD comprising:
- a housing;
- a flexure disposed within the housing;
- and
- a mass disposed within the housing and supported by the flexure.
An assembly, comprising:
- a reaction wheel assembly (RWA), comprising:
- an RWA housing;
- and
- a rotor mounted in the RWA housing for rotation about a spin axis;
- and
- a tunable mass damper (TMD) mounted to the exterior of the RWA housing and configured to dampen vibrations along a first axis perpendicular to the spin axis and along a second axis perpendicular to the first axis and to the spin axis.
An assembly, comprising:
- a rotating inertia member having a spin axis;
- and
- a tunable mass damper (TMD), comprising:
- a TMD housing mounted to the rotating inertia member and configured to be filled with a damping fluid;
- a mass disposed within the TMD housing and exposed to the damping fluid when the TMD housing is filled therewith;
- and
- a flexure coupled between the TMD housing and the mass, the flexure having a first lateral stiffness taken along a first axis perpendicular to the spin axis, a second lateral stiffness taken along a second axis perpendicular to the first axis and to the spin axis, and a translational stiffness taken along the spin axis and exceeding the first and second lateral stiffnesses.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.