The decoupling of damped linear systems in free or forced vibration

The purpose of this paper is to extend classical modal analysis to decouple any viscously damped linear system in non-oscillatory free vibration or in forced vibration. Based upon an exposition of how exponential decay in a system can be regarded as imaginary oscillations, the concept of damped modes of imaginary vibration is introduced. By phase synchronization of these real and physically excitable modes, a time-varying transformation is constructed to decouple non-oscillatory free vibration. When time drifts caused by viscous damping and by external excitation are both accounted for, a time-varying decoupling transformation for forced vibration is derived. The decoupling procedure devised herein reduces to classical modal analysis for systems that are undamped or classically damped. This paper constitutes the second and final part of a solution to the “classical decoupling problem.” Together with an earlier paper, a general methodology that requires only the solution of a quadratic eigenvalue problem is developed to decouple any damped linear system.     

Strongly nonlinear beats in the dynamics of an elastic system with a strong local stiffness nonlinearity: Analysis and identification

We consider a linear cantilever beam attached to ground through a strongly nonlinear stiffness at its free boundary, and study its dynamics computationally by the assumed-modes method. The nonlinear stiffness of this system has no linear component, so it is essentially nonlinear and nonlinearizable. We find that the strong nonlinearity mostly affects the lower-frequency bending modes and gives rise to strongly nonlinear beat phenomena. Analysis of these beats proves that they are caused by internal resonance interactions of nonlinear normal modes (NNMs) of the system. These internal resonances are not of the classical type since they occur between bending modes whose linearized natural frequencies are not necessarily related by rational ratios; rather, they are due to the strong energy-dependence of the frequency of oscillation of the corresponding NNMs of the beam (arising from the strong local stiffness nonlinearity) and occur at energy ranges where the frequencies of these NNMs are rationally related. Nonlinear effects start at a different energy level for each mode. Lower modes are influenced at lower energies due to larger modal displacements than higher modes and thus, at certain energy levels, the NNMs become rationally related, which results in internal resonance. The internal resonances of NNMs are studied using a reduced order model of the beam system. Then, a nonlinear system identification method is developed, capable of identifying this type of strongly nonlinear modal interactions. It is based on an adaptive step-by-step application of empirical mode decomposition (EMD) to the measured time series, which makes it valid for multi-frequency beating signals. Our work extends an earlier nonlinear system identification approach developed for nearly mono-frequency (monochromatic) signals. The extended system identification method is applied to the identification of the strongly nonlinear dynamics of the considered cantilever beam with the local strong nonlinear stiffness at its free end.     

Energy pumping for a larger span of energy

This paper is devoted to energy pumping: exhibiting a multi-degree-of-freedom (dof) nonlinear attachment coupled to a single-dof linear one, energy's area leading to energy pumping phenomenon is increased by involving different nonlinear modes in the process.     

Complex eigensolutions of coupled flexural and longitudinal modes in a beam with inclined elastic supports with non-proportional damping

Structure borne vibration and noise in an automobile are often explained by representing the full vehicle as a system of elastically coupled beam structures representing the body, engine cradle and body subframe where the engine is often connected to the chassis via inclined viscoelastic supports. To understand more clearly the interactions between a beam structure and isolators, this article examines the flexural and longitudinal motions in an elastic beam with intentionally inclined mounts (viscoelastic end supports). A new analytical solution is derived for the boundary coupled Euler beam and wave equations resulting in complex eigensolutions. This system is demonstrated to be self-adjoint when the support stiffness matrices are symmetric; thus, the modal analysis is used to decouple the equations of motion and solve for the steady state, damped harmonic response. Experimental validation and computational verifications confirm the validity of the proposed formulation. New and interesting phenomena are presented including coupled rigid motions, modal properties for ideal angled roller boundaries, and relationships between coupling and system modal loss factors. The ideal roller boundary conditions when inclined are seen as a limiting case of coupled longitudinal and flexural motions. In particular, the coupled rigid body motions illustrate the influence of support stiffness coupling on the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions. The relative modal strain energy concept is used to distinguish the contribution of longitudinal and flexural deformation modes. Since the beam is assumed to be undamped, the system damping is derived from the viscoelastic supports. The support damping (for a given loss factor) is shown to be redistributed between the system modes due to the inclined coupling mechanisms. Finally, this article provides valuable insight by highlighting some technical issues a real-life designer faces when balancing modeling assumptions such as rigid or elastic formulations, proportional or non-proportional damping, and coupling terms in multidimensional joint properties.     

A fuzzy finite element procedure for the calculation of uncertain frequency-response functions of damped structures: Part 1—Procedure

This work introduces a numerical algorithm to calculate frequency-response functions (FRFs) of damped finite element (FE) models with fuzzy uncertain parameters. Part one of this paper describes the numerical algorithm for the solution of the underlying interval finite element (IFE) problem. First, the IFE procedure for the calculation of undamped envelope FRFs is discussed. Starting from the undamped procedure, a strategy is developed to analyse damped structures based on the principle of Rayleigh damping. This is achieved by analysing the effect of the proportional damping coefficients on the subsequent steps of the undamped procedure. This finally results in a procedure for the calculation of fuzzy damped FRFs based on an analytical extension of the undamped algorithm. Part one of this paper introduces the numerical procedure. Part two of this paper illustrates the application of the methodology on four numerical case studies.     

Guided wave modes in porous cylinders: Theory

The classical theory of wave propagation in elastic cylinders is extended to poro-elastic mandrel modes. The classical theory predicts the existence of undamped L modes and damped C, I, and Z modes. These waves also appear in poro-elastic mandrels, but all of them become damped because of viscous effects. The presence of the Biot slow bulk wave in the poro-elastic material is responsible for the generation of additional mandrel modes. One of them was already discussed by Feng and Johnson, and the others can be grouped together as so-called D modes. The damping of these D modes is at least as high as the damping of the free-field slow wave.     

The modulation instability revisited

The modulational instability (or “Benjamin-Feir instability”) has been a fundamental principle of nonlinear wave propagation in systems without dissipation ever since it was discovered in the 1960s. It is often identified as a mechanism by which energy spreads from one dominant Fourier mode to neighboring modes. In recent work, we have explored how damping affects this instability, both mathematically and experimentally. Mathematically, the modulational instability changes fundamentally in the presence of damping: for waves of small or moderate amplitude, damping (of the right kind) stabilizes the instability. Experimentally, we observe wavetrains of small or moderate amplitude that are stable within the lengths of our wavetanks, and we find that the damped theory predicts the evolution of these wavetrains much more accurately than earlier theories. For waves of larger amplitude, neither the standard (undamped) theory nor the damped theory is accurate, because frequency downshifting affects the evolution in ways that are still poorly understood.     

Karhunen–Loeve analysis and order reduction of the transient dynamics of linear coupled oscillators with strongly nonlinear end attachments

The Karhunen–Loeve (K–L) decomposition method has become a popular technique to create low-dimensional, reduced-order models of dynamical systems. In this paper this technique is applied to a multi-degree-of-freedom chain of linear coupled oscillators with a strongly nonlinear (nonlinearizable), lightweight end attachment. By performing K–L decomposition we show that the lightweight nonlinear attachment (possessing 0.5% of the total mass of the chain) can affect the global dynamics of the linear chain, exhibiting nonlinear energy-pumping phenomena; that is, irreversible passive targeted energy transfers from the linear chain to the nonlinear end attachment, where this energy is locally confined and dissipated without ‘spreading back’ to the primary system. It is shown that the occurrence of energy pumping can be identified by studying the dominant K–L modes of the dynamics, as well as, the energy distribution among them. Moreover, by comparing the action of the strongly nonlinear attachment to the classical linear vibration absorber, we show robustness of passive nonlinear energy absorption over wide parameter ranges. On the other hand, the case-sensitive nature of K–L-based reduced-order models has always been a constraint for K–L decomposition, since one cannot quantify a priori the error bound of such low-dimensional reduced-order models when different initial conditions are applied to the system. To alleviate this constraint, the paper proposes a multiple correlation coefficient (MCC) as a quantitative measure to effectively assess the applicability of a K–L-based reduced-order model derived for a specific set of initial conditions to a small neighborhood of initial conditions containing that initial state. The derived reduced-order models are validated through reconstruction of the system responses and comparisons to direct numerical integrations.     

Inverse iteration for damped natural vibration

Inverse iteration is extended to internally and/or externally damped natural vibration. Each iteration involves one matrix multiplication and one linear equation solution of order n. The symmetric band form of the original undamped eigenvalue problem is preserved. If the undamped mode is taken as the first approximation, the inverse iteration will converse to the corresponding damped mode in about four iterations. However, the one step method is divergent for heavy damping. Therefore, it is advisible to subdivide the damping into successive steps if inverse iteration does not converge in say five iterations. The method is successful for both discrete systems and distributed systems. The implementation is very simple by means of complex arithmetic which is readily available in many FORTRAN compilers.     

Periodic orbits, damped transitions and targeted energy transfers in oscillators with vibro-impact attachments

We study complex damped and undamped dynamics and targeted energy transfers (TETs) in systems of coupled oscillators, consisting of single-degree-of-freedom primary linear oscillators (LOs) with vibro-impact attachments, acting, in essence, as vibro-impact nonlinear energy sinks (VI NESs). First, the complicated dynamics of such VI systems is demonstrated by computing the VI periodic orbits of underlying Hamiltonian systems and depicting them in appropriate frequency–energy plots (FEPs). Then, VI damped transitions and distinct ways of passive TETs from the linear oscillators to the VI attachments for various parameter ranges and initial conditions are investigated. As in the case of smooth stiffness nonlinearity [Y. Lee, G. Kerschen, A. Vakakis, P. Panagopoulos, L. Bergman, D.M. McFarland, Complicated dynamics of a linear oscillator with a light, essentially nonlinear attachment, Physica D 204 (1–2) (2005) 41–69], both fundamental and subharmonic TET can be realized in the VI systems under consideration. It is found that the most efficient mechanism for VI TET is through the excitation of highly energetic VI impulsive orbits (IOs), i.e., of periodic or quasiperiodic orbits corresponding to zero initial conditions except for the initial velocities of the linear oscillators. In contrast to NESs with smooth essential nonlinearities considered in previous works, VI NESs are capable of passively absorbing and locally dissipating significant portions of the energies of the primary systems to which they are attached, at fast time scale. This renders such devices suitable for applications, like seismic mitigation, where dissipation of vibration energy in the early, highly energetic regime of the motion is a critical requirement.     

A perturbation technique for gyroscopic systems with small internal and external damping

The response of linear damped gyroscopic systems can be obtained by means of techniques of linear systems theory, which involves the computation of the transition matrix. The response is in terms of complex quantities, which is likely to cause computational difficulties as the order of the system increases. In the absence of damping, it is possible to derive the response of a linear gyroscopic system with relative ease by working with real quantities alone. When damping is small, one can use a perturbation approach to produce the response by regarding the undamped gyroscopic system as the unperturbed system. In a previous paper, a perturbation analysis was used to derive the response of a gyroscopic system with small internal damping. This paper extends the approach to the case of external damping, which is characterized not only by symmetric coefficients multiplying velocities but also by skew symmetric coefficients multiplying displacements, where the latter terms are known as circulatory. A numerical example is presented.     

Optimum vibration absorber (tuned mass damper) design for linear damped systems subjected to random loads

Optimum design of dynamic vibration absorbers (DVAs) installed on linear damped systems that are subjected to random loads is studied and closed-form design formulas are provided. Three cases are considered in the optimization process: Minimizing the variance of the displacement, velocity and acceleration of the main mass. Exact optimum design parameters for the velocity case, which to the best knowledge of the author do not exist in the literature, are derived for the first time. Exact solutions are found to be directly applicable for practical use with no simplification needed. For displacement and acceleration cases, a solution for the optimum absorber frequency ratio is obtained as a function of optimum absorber damping ratio. Numerical simulations indicate that optimum absorber damping ratio is not significantly related to the structural damping, especially when the displacement variance is minimized. Therefore, optimum damping ratio derived for undamped systems is proposed for damped systems for the displacement case. When acceleration variance is minimized, however, the optimum damping ratio derived for undamped systems is found not as accurate for damped systems. Therefore, a more accurate approximate expression is derived. Numerical comparisons with published approximate expressions at the same level of complexity indicated that proposed design formula yield more accurate estimates. Another important finding of the paper is that for specific applications where all of the response parameters are desired to be minimized simultaneously, DVAs designed per velocity criteria provide the best overall performance with the least complexity in the design equations.     

Locally nonequilibrium magnetic excitations in insulators

The equation of motion for the magnetic moment vector M in a locally nonequilibrium medium is derived. The dispersion and attenuation of the coupled modes of the magnetic vector potential and magnetization are determined. It is shown that the continuous spectrum contains frequencies corresponding to undamped waves or constant-phase damped waves.     

A new method for harmonic response of non-proportionally damped structures using undamped modal data

A method of calculating the receptances of a non-proportionally damped structure from the undamped modal data and the damping matrix of the system is presented. The method developed is an exact method. It gives exact results when exact undamped receptances are employed in the computation. Inaccuracies are due to the truncations made in the calculation of undamped receptances. Numerical examples, demonstrating the accuracy and speed of the method when truncated receptance series are used are also presented. Advantages of the method over classical methods are discussed, and it is concluded that the method is most advantageous when used for a structure with frequency and/or temperature dependent damping properties, or when the non-proportional part of the damping is local. The technique suggested can easily be applied to structural modification problems if there is no additional degree-of-freedom due to the modifying structure.     

EFFECTS OF BASE POINTS AND NORMALIZATION SCHEMES ON THE NON-LINEAR NORMAL MODES OF CONSERVATIVE SYSTEMS

In this paper, two factors that affect the behaviors of the non-linear normal modes (NNMs) of conservative vibratory systems are investigated. The first factor is the base points (which are equivalent to Taylor series expanding points) of the non-linear normal modes and the second one is the normalization schemes of the corresponding linear modes. For non-linear systems, in general only the approximated NNM manifolds are obtainable in practice, so different base points may lead to different forms of NNM oscillators and different normalization schemes lead to different forward and backward transformations which in turn affect the numerical computation errors. Three different kinds of base points and two different normalization schemes are adopted for comparison respectively. Two examples of non-linear systems with two and three degrees of freedom, respectively, are given as illustration. Simulations for various cases are made. The analysis and the simulation results indicated that, the best base points are the abstract base points determined via the linear normal mode, which would eliminate the third order terms containing velocity (for cubic systems) or quadratic terms (for quadratic systems) in equations of the NNM oscillators. A better invariance of the NNMs would also be maintained with such base points. The best scheme of normalization is the norm-one scheme that would minimize the numerical errors.     

Damped vibration analysis of an elastically connected complex double-string system

The main purpose of the present paper is to consider theoretically damped transverse vibrations of an elastically connected double-string system. This system is treated as two viscoelastic strings with a Kelvin-Voigt viscoelastic layer between them. A theoretical analysis has been made for a simplified model of the system, in which assumed physical parameters make it possible to decouple the governing equations of motion by introducing the principal co-ordinates. Applying the method of separation of variables and the modal expansion method, exact analytical solutions for damped free and forced responses of the system subjected to arbitrarily distributed transverse continuous loads are determined in the case of arbitrary magnitude of linear viscous damping. It is important to note that the solutions obtained are explicitly expressed in terms of parameters characterizing the physical properties of the system under discussion. For the sake of completeness of the analysis, solutions for undamped free and forced vibrations are also formulated.     

On the destabilizing effect of damping on discrete and continuous circulatory systems

The ‘Ziegler paradox’, concerning the destabilizing effect of damping on elastic systems loaded by nonconservative positional forces, is addressed. The paper aims to look at the phenomenon in a new perspective, according to which no surprising discontinuities in the critical load exist between undamped and damped systems. To show that the actual critical load is found as an (infinitesimal) perturbation of one of the infinitely many sub-critically loaded undamped systems. A series expansion of the damped eigenvalues around the distinct purely imaginary undamped eigenvalues is performed, with the load kept as a fixed, although unknown, parameter. The first sensitivity of the eigenvalues, which is found to be real, is zeroed, so that an implicit expression for the critical load multiplier is found, which only depends on the ‘shape’ of damping, being independent of its magnitude. An interpretation is given of the destabilization paradox, by referring to the concept of ‘modal damping’, according to which the sign of the projection of the damping force on the eigenvector of the dual basis, and not on the eigenvector itself, is the true responsible for stability. The whole procedure is explained in detail for discrete systems, and successively extended to continuous systems. Two sample structures are studied for illustrative purposes: the classical reverse double-pendulum under a follower force and a linear visco-elastic beam under a follower force and a dead load.     

Dynamic testing of nonlinear vibrating structures using nonlinear normal modes

Modal testing and analysis is well-established for linear systems. The objective of this paper is to progress toward a practical experimental modal analysis (EMA) methodology of nonlinear mechanical structures. In this context, nonlinear normal modes (NNMs) offer a solid theoretical and mathematical tool for interpreting a wide class of nonlinear dynamical phenomena, yet they have a clear and simple conceptual relation to the classical linear normal modes (LNMs). A nonlinear extension of force appropriation techniques is developed in this study in order to isolate one single NNM during the experiments. With the help of time-frequency analysis, the energy dependence of NNM modal curves and their frequencies of oscillation are then extracted from the time series. The proposed methodology is demonstrated using two numerical benchmarks, a two-degree-of-freedom system and a planar cantilever beam with a cubic spring at its free end.     

Delocalization of Slowly Damped Eigenmodes on Anosov Manifolds

We look at the properties of high frequency eigenmodes for the damped wave equation on a compact manifold with an Anosov geodesic flow. We study eigenmodes with damping parameters which are asymptotically close enough to the real axis. We prove that such modes cannot be completely localized on subsets satisfying a condition of negative topological pressure. As an application, one can deduce the existence of a ??strip?? of logarithmic size without eigenvalues below the real axis under this dynamical assumption on the set of undamped trajectories.     

Influence of non-linear forces on beam behaviour in flutter conditions

Appropriate researches on non-linear panel flutter behaviour have been already performed by many authors. In most cases the intent of them focuses on the limit cycle determination, with particular interest towards its amplitude versus the flow dynamic pressure. This paper deals first with a study of all the solutions without damping of beam flutter versus the vibration frequency in non-linear post-critical conditions. A numerical model, which takes into account the influence of the non-linear contribution of the structural forces, due to the axial stretching of the beam, has been implemented. A complete analysis of all the possible non-linear solutions without damping leads to the possibility of characterizing the most appropriate conditions for the presence of the post-critical panel flutter limit cycles. Then the complete model, which also takes into account aerodynamic damping, has been utilized, according to the “Piston Theory”, to verify the state evolution of the fluttering damped beam towards the limit cycle, which is very near to the undamped vibrating beam state with minimum amplitude. This convergence test is an interesting aspect of the numerical results.