Sommerfeld effect in a vibrocompaction process

Description

This study addresses the influence of the Sommerfeld effect on the behaviour of vibrocompacting machines driven by unbalanced electric motors. Based on a simplified model with 4 degrees of freedom previously published by the authors, we investigate the dynamics of quasistatic vibrocompaction processes, i.e. those in which the compaction is achieved through a sufficiently slow increase in the input power of the electric motors. The main novel contribution of the paper is the characterization of the evolution of the system state through a quasistatic torque curve, which is analytically derived. This curve provides the maximum compaction that can be quasistatically achieved and the amount of motor torque required to reach a desired compaction level, while also revealing the specific way in which the Sommerfeld effect takes place in the system under study. The analytical results are used to give a clear physical interpretation to the numerical results previously published by the authors. Good agreement is found between numerical and analytical results.

Abstract

This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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