Automated synthesis of mechanical vibration absorbers using genetic programming

Conceptual innovation in mechanical engineering design has been extremely challenging compared to the wide applications of automated design systems in digital circuits. This paper presents an automated methodology for open-ended synthesis of mechanical vibration absorbers based on genetic programming and bond graphs. It is shown that our automated design system can automatically evolve passive vibration absorbers that have performance equal to or better than the standard passive vibration absorbers invented in 1911. A variety of other vibration absorbers with competitive performance are also evolved automatically using a desktop PC in less than 10 h.