Application of the Inverse Substructure Method in the Investigation of Dynamic Characteristics of Product Transport System

Product, packaging and vehicle constitute a complex product transport system in logistics. It is very difficult to obtain accurately the dynamic response of a product transport system under the action of environmental vibration and shock. In this paper, product transport system is treated as a two substructure‐coupled system composed of product system (including critical element) and vehicle connected by packaging and its fixing (location pattern, securing, etc.); the inverse substructure method is applied to the analysis of the dynamic characteristics of the system. For verification of the validity of the inverse substructure method for product transport system, a typical lumped mass model is taken as an example for numerical validation. To check out the accuracy of the method, we completed the experiment, and the predicted substructure‐level frequency response functions are in overall agreement with those measured. The sensitivity of the method to measurement error is also made. To study the influences of the product parameters, packaging and its fixing, we investigated the effects of the coupling stiffness, mass ratio, frequency parameter ratio and damping on the dynamic response of critical element. Reducing the coupling static stiffness of product–vehicle interface can effectively lower the response of critical element, especially when the coupling stiffness is less than the stiffness of product and vehicle. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.