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Faculty of Engineering and Information
Sciences
2019
Vibration control of a tunnel boring machine using adaptive Vibration control of a tunnel boring machine using adaptive
magnetorheological damper magnetorheological damper
Bo Yang
Northeastern University, University of Wollongong
Shuaishuai Sun
University of Wollongong
, ssun@uow.edu.au
Lei Deng
University of Wollongong
, ld530@uowmail.edu.au
Tianhe Jin
Beijing Jiaotong University
Weihua Li
University of Wollongong
, weihuali@uow.edu.au
See next page for additional authors
Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/eispapers1
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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation
Yang, Bo; Sun, Shuaishuai; Deng, Lei; Jin, Tianhe; Li, Weihua; and Li, He, "Vibration control of a tunnel
boring machine using adaptive magnetorheological damper" (2019).
Faculty of Engineering and
Information Sciences - Papers: Part B
. 3449.
https://ro.uow.edu.au/eispapers1/3449
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contact the UOW Library: research-pubs@uow.edu.au
Vibration control of a tunnel boring machine using adaptive magnetorheological Vibration control of a tunnel boring machine using adaptive magnetorheological
damper damper
Abstract Abstract
With a large number of tunnel boring machines (TBM) being used in various tunnel constructions, the
vibration problem under complex geological conditions have become increasingly prominent. In order to
solve the problem, this article investigates the application of an adaptive magnetorheological (MR)
damper on the vibration reduction of a TBM. The MR damper could reduce the horizontal vibration of the
TBM system and adjust its dragging force on the propulsive system under different geological conditions.
The MR damper can also provide large enough damping force even under a small amplitude vibration,
which is required by TBM. In this paper, an MR damper was designed, prototyped and its properties were
tested by an MTS system, including its current-dependency, amplitude-dependency and frequency-
dependency features. A scaled TBM system incorporated with the MR damper was built to evaluate the
vibration reduction effectiveness of the MR damper on the TBM system. The experimental test results
demonstrate that the displacement and the acceleration amplitudes of the TMB vibration could be
reduced by 52.14% and 53.31%, respectively.
Disciplines Disciplines
Engineering | Science and Technology Studies
Publication Details Publication Details
Yang, B., Sun, S., Deng, L., Jin, T., Li, W. & Li, H. (2019). Vibration control of a tunnel boring machine using
adaptive magnetorheological damper. Smart Materials and Structures, 28 (11), 1-15.
Authors Authors
Bo Yang, Shuaishuai Sun, Lei Deng, Tianhe Jin, Weihua Li, and He Li
This journal article is available at Research Online: https://ro.uow.edu.au/eispapers1/3449
Vibration control of a tunnel boring machine using adaptive
magnetorheological damper
Bo Yang
1,2
, ShuaiShuai Sun
2
, Lei Deng
2
, Tianhe Jin
3
, Weihua Li
2
, He Li
1
1. School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Northeastern University, Shenyang
110819, China;
2. School of Mechanical, Materials, Mechatronic and Biomedical Engineering, University of
Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia;
3. School of Mechanical, Electronic and Control Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University,
Beijing 100044, China
E-mail: hli@mail.neu.edu.cn and ssun@uow.edu.au
Abstract
With a large number of tunnel boring machines (TBM) being used in various tunnel
constructions, the vibration problems under complex geological conditions have become
increasingly prominent. In order to solve this problem, this article investigates the application
of an adaptive magnetorheological (MR) damper on the vibration reduction of a TBM. The MR
damper could reduce the horizontal vibration of the TBM system and adjust its dragging force
on the propulsive system according to different geological conditions. The MR damper can
also provide large enough damping force even under a small amplitude vibration, which is
required by TBM. In this paper, an MR damper was designed, prototyped and its properties
were tested by an MTS system, including its current-dependency, amplitude-dependency and
frequency-dependency features. A scaled TBM system was built to evaluate the effectiveness
of the MR damper on the vibration reduction of TBM system. The experimental evaluation
results demonstrate that the displacement and the acceleration amplitudes of the TMB vibration
could be reduced by 52.14% and 53.31%, respectively.
Keywords: magnetorheological (MR) damper, tunnel boring machine (TBM), semi-active
vibration reduction.
1. Introduction
Tunnel boring machine (TBM) has been used more and more for a wide range of tunnel
excavations, such as subway tunnel, road tunnel, drinking water tunnel, and municipal pipe
network tunnel. During these tunnel constructions, complex geological environments often
hinder the smooth excavation [1,2]. Boring blocky rock mass and hard rock causes violent
vibration, which is easy to loosen the pipeline, damage the mechanical system, and even lead
to off-course of the TBM in the horizontal direction [3,4]. Practical examples of mechanical
damage associated with severe vibrations can be found in many papers. For instance, Bilgin [5]
et al. records that there are 20% mechanical failures related to vibration, including hydraulic
hose failure and steering cylinder failure during the Tarabya tunnelling. Zou et al. [6] present
that severe vibration led to some problems on TBM such as reduced penetration rate and
damaged disc cutter in Dahuofang railway tunnel, Qinling water tunnel and Liaoxibei Water
tunnel. Huo et al. [7] measured a Robbins TBM in Liaoning northwest project. The result shows
that the measured horizontal acceleration of a cutterhead reached 1.5g to 2.5g in normal
excavation conditions.
The above research has shown that the TBM is accompanied by severe vibrations during hard
rock excavation. It is essential to reduce these vibrations using different methods and devices
because severe vibration increases the maintenance cost and reduces the efficiency of tunneling.
The existing vibration reduction measures are only for some accessories on TBM. For instance,
Xie et al. [8] analyses the fluid structure interaction of a hydraulic piping system of TBM. It is
significant to suppress pipe vibrations by optimizing pipeline length. The author of this article
developed a MR damper and T-S fuzzy controller for segment erector vibration reduction,
which is installed on a TBM. Compared to a passive damper, MR damper reduces vibration
acceleration by 32.1% under a random excitation [9]. In addition, wire saw cutting technique
was proposed in underground tunnel excavation as a vibration reduction method by Gustafsson
[10]. Lee et al. [11] improved this technique by mounting a wire saw around center blast area
and a significant vibration reduction is observed. However, the above methods only
investigated the vibration reduction of TBM components or need to make major changes to
TBM.
In addition to the above methods, increasing the damping of the TBM structure is another
effective method. However, the conventional passive damper cannot satisfy the requirements
of the TBM because of the following two reasons. Firstly different damping is required under
different excavation conditions. Specifically, during the hard rock excavation, the vibration of
the girder is fierce and requires large damping force to attenuate the vibration; however, during
soft rock excavation, the large damping is not required because only slight vibration exists and
large damping force, conversely, will significantly increase the requirement of propulsion force.
On the other hand, the vibration amplitude of the TBM is small, thus it is hard to design a
conventional damper to generate large enough damping force under small amplitude vibration.
In order to resolve these issues, adaptive MR damper is proposed to control the vibration of
TBM in this paper. MR fluid is one kind of smart fluid, whose yield stress can be adjusted in
millisecond level [12, 13]. MR damper is a controllable damper filled with MR fluids and its
damping can be rapidly controlled. Because of the high adaptability of the MR damper, it has
been widely applied in many fields, including vehicle suspension, impact protection, vibration
control, adaptive robotic technology, etc. [14-22]. The controllability of the MR damper can
satisfy the requirements of different geological conditions. In addition, the high yield stress of
MR fluids under magnetic field enable the MR damper to have the capability of generating
large damping force under low vibration amplitude, which is an ideal feature required by the
vibration attenuation of TBM. In this paper, an MR damper is designed, prototyped and
characterized for a scaled TBM in Section 2. Section 3 introduced the testing system, conducted
the evaluation of the scaled TBM installed with MR damper and analyzed the testing results.
The conclusion is drawn in Section 4.
2. Construction of a scaled TBM installed with an MR damper
During the process of breaking the rock by TBM, the unbalanced moment and impact load can
cause severe vibration. As a result, the equipment, piping line and electrical devices on the
TBM often damage. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to employ the MR damper
because it can generate enough damping fore.
2.1 The design of a scaled TBM
In order to evaluate the effect of the MR damper on TBM vibration reduction, an 1:35 scaled
TBM testing platform, as shown in Figure 1, is designed and manufactured following a real
TBM (type 880E, Aker Wirth corp.). The specific parameter comparison of the scaled TBM
and the real TBM is provided in Table1.
Figure 1. Structure of TBM installed with an MR damper
Table 1. Comparison between real TBM (model: 880E) and the scaled TBM
Items
TBM 880E
Test platform
Dimensions
25530x8800x8800mm
728x250x250mm
tunneling speed
3.5m/h
1~5m/h
Rotating speed of cutterhead
5.4rpm
5rpm~50rpm
Motor power of the cutterhead
8x430KW
1x0.75KW
Main drive mode
gears
gears
The test platform consists of three parts: propulsion module, rotary cutting module, and damper
module. Propulsion module is made up of a linear actuator and a linear guideway, which can
simulate the motion characteristics of the gripper and main thrust cylinders of TBM. The rotary
cutting module comprises of a servo motor, a planetary reducer, a pair of spur gears and a plate,
which is used to imitate TBM’s cutterhead and its driving system. On the plate of the test
platform, metal and plastic cutters are installed to imitate a real cutter to cut materials of various
hardness and density, driven by the servo motor. 3D printed plastic materials and foams are
installed on a plate in front of the cutterhead, as shown in Figure.1, to simulate the hard rock
materials and soft rock materials during the testing, respectively. Regarding the damper module,
one end of the damper is connected to the gripper shoes, and the other end is connected to the
girder. When the main thrust cylinders move forward, the MR damper’s rod also moves.
Following the practical installation, the scaled MR damper module is mounted between the
