Application of RBF neural network in prediction of particle damping parameters from experimental data

Particle damping is one of the recent passive damping methods and its relevance in space structural applications is increasing. This paper presents the novel application of a radial basis function (RBF) neural network to accurately predict the modal damping ratio of a particle damping system using system input parameters such as particle size, particle density, packing ratio, and their effect at different modes of vibration. The prediction of particle damping using the RBF neural network is studied in comparison with the back propagation neural (BPN) network on an aluminum alloy beam structure with extensive experimental tests. The prediction accuracy of the RBF neural network is significant with 9.83% error compared to 12.22% obtained by the BPN network for a best case. Limited experiments were also carried out on a mild steel beam to study and compare the trends predicted in earlier studies. The relationships obtained by the proposed method readily provide useful guidelines in the design of particle dampers for space applications. The RBF neural network provides superior accuracy with reduced computational effort.