Designing vibratory linear feeders through an inverse dynamic structural modification approach

The design of vibratory feeders ensuring effective product feeding is particularly demanding since the flexibility of the device components severely affects the dynamic response. Traditional design approaches are based on expensive and time-consuming trial and error iterations, which include building and testing tentative devices. In order to overcome these limitations, this paper proposes a novel systematic approach for designing linear vibratory feeders, based on an inverse dynamic structural modification approach. After synthesising a reduced-order model, the design is cast as an inverse eigenvalue problem and solved numerically through the minimization of a convex quadratic function. Constraints on the design variables, i.e. inertial and elastic parameters, are represented through a convex domain and included in the optimization problem. The numerical and experimental results obtained prove the effectiveness of the method and its ease of application, that make is suitable for both the design of new feeders and the optimization of existing ones