Spacecraft formation flying in the port-Hamiltonian framework

The problem of controlling the relative position and velocity in multi-spacecraft formation flying in the planetary orbits is an enabling technology for current and future research. This paper proposes a family of tracking controllers for different dynamics of Spacecraft Formation Flying (SFF) in the framework of port-Hamiltonian (pH) systems through application of timed Interconnection and Damping Assignment Passivity-Based Control (IDA-PBC). The leader–multi-follower architecture is used to address this problem. In this regard, first we model the spacecraft motion in the pH framework in the Earth Centered Inertial frame and then transform it to the Hill frame which is a special local coordinate system. By this technique, we may present a unified structure which encompasses linear/nonlinear dynamics, with/without perturbation. Then, using the timed IDA-PBC method and the contraction analysis, a new method for controlling a family of SFF dynamics is developed. The numerical simulations show the efficiency of the approach in two different cases of missions.

     

Numerical analysis of a quasistatic piezoelectric problem with damage

The quasistatic evolution of the mechanical state of a piezoelectric body with damage is numerically studied in this paper. Both damage and piezoelectric effects are included into the model. The variational formulation leads to a coupled system composed of two linear variational equations for the displacement field and the electric potential, and a nonlinear parabolic variational equation for the damage field. The existence of a unique weak solution is stated. Then, a fully discrete scheme is introduced by using a finite element method to approximate the spatial variable and an Euler scheme to discretize the time derivatives. Error estimates are derived on the approximate solutions, from which the linear convergence of the algorithm is deduced under suitable regularity conditions. Finally, a two-dimensional example is presented to demonstrate the behaviour of the solution. To cite this article: J.R. Fernández et al., C. R. Mecanique 336 (2008).     

Approximate MPA-based method for performing incremental dynamic analysis

In performance based earthquake engineering, it is important to accurately predict the seismic demand and capacities of structures. One recent estimation method is incremental dynamic analysis (IDA), which requires a series of nonlinear response history analyses (RHA) of the structure under various ground motions, each scaled to multiple levels of intensity, selected to cover entire range of structural response from elasticity, to yield and finally global dynamic instability. The implementation of IDA requires intensive computation and detailed knowledge of the nonlinear RHA of structures. In response to the complexity of IDA, an approximate method based on modal pushover analysis (MPA-based IDA) was developed. In MPA-based IDA, seismic demands are computed using the nonlinear RHA of the equivalent SDF systems instead of using nonlinear RHA of MDF systems. The objective of this study is to develop a simpler MPA-based IDA procedure that can avoid nonlinear RHA of equivalent SDF systems. For this purpose, MPA-based IDA employs the empirical equation of the inelastic displacement ratio (C _R ), defined as the ratio of peak displacement of the inelastic SDF system to that of the corresponding elastic SDF system given the strength ratio R, and that of the collapse strength ratio (R _c), which is the ratio of collapse intensity to yield strength. The proposed procedure is verified by comparing the seismic demands and capacities of 6-, 9-, and 20-story steel moment frames as determined by the proposed method and exact IDA.     

Vibration of fluid-conveying pipe with nonlinear supports at both ends

The axial fluid-induced vibration of pipes is very widespread in engineering applications. The nonlinear forced vibration of a viscoelastic fluid-conveying pipe with nonlinear supports at both ends is investigated. The multi-scale method combined with the modal revision method is formulated for the fluid-conveying pipe system with nonlinear boundary conditions. The governing equations and the nonlinear boundary conditions are rescaled simultaneously as linear inhomogeneous equations and linear inhomogeneous boundary conditions on different time-scales. The modal revision method is used to transform the linear inhomogeneous boundary problem into a linear homogeneous boundary problem. The differential quadrature element method (DQEM) is used to verify the approximate analytical results. The results show good agreement between these two methods. A detailed analysis of the boundary nonlinearity is also presented. The obtained results demonstrate that the boundary nonlinearities have a significant effect on the dynamic characteristics of the fluid-conveying pipe, and can lead to significant differences in the dynamic responses of the pipe system.

     

The nonlinear vibration analysis of a clamped-clamped beam by a reduced multibody method

The nonlinear response characteristics for a dynamic system with a geometric nonlinearity is examined using a multibody dynamics method. The planar system is an initially straight clamped-clamped beam subject to high frequency excitation in the vicinity of its third natural mode. The model includes a pre-applied static axial load, linear bending stiffness and a cubic in-plane stretching force. Constrained flexibility is applied to a multibody method that lumps the beam into N elements for three substructures subjected to the nonlinear partial differential equation of motion and N-1 linear modal constraints. This procedure is verified by d'Alembert's principle and leads to a discrete form of Galerkin's method. A finite difference scheme models the elastic forces. The beam is tuned by the axial force to obtain fourth order internal resonance that demonstrates bimodal and trimodal responses in agreement with low and moderate excitation test results. The continuous Galerkin method is shown to generate results conflicting with the test and multibody method. A new checking function based on Gauss' principle of least constraint is applied to the beam to minimize modal constraint error.     

Numerical analysis and accurate computation of heteroclinic orbits in the case of center manifolds

In earlier papers (see the preceding paper and the references there), Doedel and the author have developed a numerical method for the computation of branches of heteroclinic orbits for a system of autonomous ordinary differential equations in ⁿ in the case that the solution approaches the fixed points exponentially. The idea of the method is to reduce a boundary value problem on the real line to a boundary value problem on a finite interval by using linear approximation of the unstable and stable manifolds. Using the fact that the linearized operator of the problem is Fredholm in Banach spaces with exponential weights, the authors employed the general theory of approximation of nonlinear problems to show that the errors in the approximate solution decay exponentially with the length of the approximating interval. In this paper we extend the analysis in the preceding paper to the case of center manifolds which requires the refinement of the analysis in the preceding paper. The algorithm is applied to a model problem: the DC Josephson Junction. Computations are done using the software package AUTO.     

Spectral Properties of Dynamical Systems, Model Reduction and Decompositions

In this paper we discuss two issues related to model reduction of deterministic or stochastic processes. The first is the relationship of the spectral properties of the dynamics on the attractor of the original, high-dimensional dynamical system with the properties and possibilities for model reduction. We review some elements of the spectral theory of dynamical systems. We apply this theory to obtain a decomposition of the process that utilizes spectral properties of the linear Koopman operator associated with the asymptotic dynamics on the attractor. This allows us to extract the almost periodic part of the evolving process. The remainder of the process has continuous spectrum. The second topic we discuss is that of model validation, where the original, possibly high-dimensional dynamics and the dynamics of the reduced model – that can be deterministic or stochastic – are compared in some norm. Using the “statistical Takens theorem” proven in (Mezić, I. and Banaszuk, A. Physica D, 2004) we argue that comparison of average energy contained in the finite-dimensional projection is one in the hierarchy of functionals of the field that need to be checked in order to assess the accuracy of the projection.     

Approximation and Calibration of Nonlinear Structural Dynamics

In this paper, a methodology for the calibration of nonlinear structural dynamic models is presented. Calibration of nonlinear structural dynamics offers several additional challenges beyond that of linear dynamics. Even with advanced computational power, exact nonlinear finite element simulations often take several hours to complete on engineering workstations. Thus, the proposed model calibration method utilizes an approximate structural model. This approximate analysis is embedded in the outer loop, which utilizes an exact finite element analysis to verify the validity of the approximate model. If the approximate model is shown to be invalid at that point in parameter space, then the new exact analysis is used to develop an improved approximate model and the inner loop is executed again. Specifically, this paper will focus on the two key aspects of the inner loop, namely the development of an approximate model, and the parameter identification using the approximate model.     

Rich dynamics caused by diffusion

It is an awfully difficult task to design an efficient numerical method for bifurcation diagrams, the graphs of Lyapunov exponents, or the topological entropy about discrete dynamical systems by linear/nonlinear diffusion with the Direchlet/Neumann- boundary conditions. Until now there are less works concerned with such a problem. In this paper, we propose a scheme about bifurcating analysis in a series of discrete-time dynamical systems with linear/nonlinear diffusion terms under the periodic boundary conditions. The complexity of dynamical behaviors caused by the diffusion term are to be determined. Bifurcation diagrams are shown by numerical simulation and chaotic behavior (chaotic Turing patterns) is demonstrated by computing the largest Lyapunov exponent. Our theoretical model can give an interesting case study about the phenomenon: the individuals exhibit a very simple dynamics but the groups with linear/nonlinear coupling can own a complex dynamics including fluctuation, periodicity and even chaotic behavior. We find that diffusion can trigger chaotic behavior in the present system and there exist multiple Turing patterns. It is interesting as regular or chaotic patterns can be reported in this study. Chaotic orbits emerge when exploring further in the diffusion coefficient space, and such a behavior is entirely absent in the corresponding continuous time-space system. The method proposed in the present paper is innovative and the conclusion is novel.

     

Postbifurcation Equilibrium Paths Modified by Nonlinear Configuration-Dependent Conservative Loading Using Nonsmooth Analysis*

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the effect of deformation-sensitive loading devices because the nature of loading is generally not perfectly dead, being independent of the deflections that occur. This paper presents the effect of nonlinear variable load. Postbifurcation equilibrium paths and structural tangent stiffness are modified on the basis of a polygonal approximation and nonsmooth analysis. The effects of dead and variable loads are compared.

Configuration-dependent loading devices can be characterized by some load-deflection functions, much like the nature of material behavior can be characterized by stress-strain functions. The effect of a deformation-sensitive load is similar to that of the material. Consequently, in the stability analysis of structures, a configuration-dependent loading program can be handled like material behavior. Thus, in the tangent stiffness of the structure, much like the tangent modulus of the material, the tangent modulus of the load appears.

Previous research has shown that nonlinear material behavior can be handled using nonsmooth analysis—approximating nonlinear material functions by polygonals. In this paper, this method and its results are extended to the case of nonlinear loading programs. The present analysis is based on earlier work in which a complete stability analysis was introduced for dead-loaded structures that have polygonal constitutive law, namely nonsmooth material functions and non-smooth internal potential. The aim of this paper is to extend these results to cases involving nonlinear configuration-dependent conservative loading by introducing nonsmooth loading functions.     

Diagonalization method for a singularly perturbed vector Robin problem

In this paper the method and technique of the diagonalization are employed to transform a vector second-order nonlinear system into two first-order approximate diagonalized systems. The existence and the asymptotic behavior of the solutions are obtained for a vector second-order nonlinear Robin problem of singular perturbation type.     

A new semi-analytical technique for nonlinear systems based on response sensitivity analysis

In this paper, a new semi-analytical method, namely the time-domain minimum residual method, is proposed for the nonlinear problems. Unlike the existing approximate analytical method, this method does not depend on the small parameter and can converge to the exact analytical solutions quickly. The method is mainly threefold. Firstly, the approximate analytical solution of the nonlinear system \({\varvec{F\left( \ddot{x},{\dot{x}},x\right) }}={\varvec{0}}\) is expanded as the appropriate basis function and a set of unknown parameters, i.e., \({\varvec{x(t)}}\approx \sum _{i=0}^{N}{\varvec{a_i\chi _i(t)}}\). Then, the problem of solving analytical solutions is transformed into finding a set of parameters so that the residual \({\varvec{R}}={\varvec{F}}\left( \sum _{i=0}^{N}a_i\ddot{\chi }_i,\sum _{i=0}^{N}a_i{\dot{\chi }}_i,\sum _{i=0}^{N}a_i\chi _i\right) \) is minimum over a period, i.e., \(\underset{{\varvec{a}}\in {\mathscr {A}}}{\min }\int _{0}^T {\varvec{R}}({\varvec{a}},t)^{T} {\varvec{R}}({\varvec{a}},t) \mathrm {d} t\). The nonlinear equation \({\varvec{F\left( \ddot{x},{\dot{x}},x\right) }}={\varvec{0}}\) is regarded as the objective function to optimize, and the process of solving the analytic solution is transformed into a nonlinear optimization process. Finally, the optimization process is iteratively solved by the enhanced response sensitivity approach. Four numerical examples are employed to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

     

Identification method for backbone curve of cantilever beam using van der Pol-type self-excited oscillation

This study presents an experimental method for identification of the backbone curves of cantilevers using the nonlinear dynamics of a van der Pol oscillator. The backbone curve characterizes the nonlinear stiffness and nonlinear inertia of the resonator, so it is important to identify this curve experimentally to realize high-sensitivity and high-accuracy sensing resonators. Unlike the conventional method based on the frequency response under external excitation, the proposed method based on self-excited oscillation enables direct backbone curve identification, because the effect of the viscous environment is eliminated under the linear velocity feedback condition. In this research, the method proposed for discrete systems is extended to give an identification method for continuum systems such as cantilever beams. The actuation is given with respect to both the linear and nonlinear feedbacks so that the system behaves as a van der Pol oscillator with a stable steady-state amplitude. By varying the nonlinear feedback gain, we can produce the self-excited oscillation experimentally with various steady-state amplitudes. Then, using the relationship between these steady-state amplitudes and the corresponding experimentally measured response frequencies, we can detect the backbone curve while varying the nonlinear feedback gain. The efficiency of the proposed method is determined by identifying the backbone curves of a macrocantilever with a tip mass and a macrocantilever subjected to atomic forces, which are representative sources of hardening and softening cubic nonlinearities, respectively.

     

Singularly perturbed feedback linearization with linear attitude deviation dynamics realization

A new approach for feedback linearization of attitude dynamics for rigid gas jet-actuated spacecraft control is introduced. The approach is aimed at providing global feedback linearization of the spacecraft dynamics while realizing a prescribed linear attitude deviation dynamics. The methodology is based on nonuniqueness representation of underdetermined linear algebraic equations solution via nullspace parametrization using generalized inversion. The procedure is to prespecify a stable second-order linear time-invariant differential equation in a norm measure of the spacecraft attitude variables deviations from their desired values. The evaluation of this equation along the trajectories defined by the spacecraft equations of motion yields a linear relation in the control variables. These control variables can be solved by utilizing the Moore–Penrose generalized inverse of the involved controls coefficient row vector. The resulting control law consists of auxiliary and particular parts, residing in the nullspace of the controls coefficient and the range space of its generalized inverse, respectively. The free null-control vector in the auxiliary part is projected onto the controls coefficient nullspace by a nullprojection matrix, and is designed to yield exponentially stable spacecraft internal dynamics, and singularly perturbed feedback linearization of the spacecraft attitude dynamics. The feedback control design utilizes the concept of damped generalized inverse to limit the growth of the Moore–Penrose generalized inverse, in addition to the concepts of singularly perturbed controls coefficient nullprojection and damped controls coefficient nullprojection to disencumber the nullprojection matrix from its rank deficiency, and to enhance the closed loop control system performance. The methodology yields desired linear attitude deviation dynamics realization with globally uniformly ultimately bounded trajectory tracking errors, and reveals a tradeoff between trajectory tracking accuracy and damped generalized inverse stability. The paper bridges a gap between the nonlinear control problem applied to spacecraft dynamics and some of the basic generalized inversion-related analytical dynamics principles.     

A new approach to investigate the nonlinear dynamics in a (3 + 1)-dimensional nonlinear evolution equation via Wronskian condition with a free function

This paper proposes a new approach to investigate the nonlinear dynamics in a (3 + 1)-dimensional nonlinear evolution equation via Wronskian condition with a free function. Firstly, a Wronskian condition involving a free function is introduced for the equation. Secondly, by solving the Wronskian condition, some exact solutions are presented. Thirdly, the dynamical behaviors are analyzed by choosing specific functions in the Wronskian condition. In addition, some exact solutions are graphically illustrated by using Mathematica symbolic computations. The dynamical behaviors include stationary y-breather, line-soliton resonance, line-soliton-like phenomenon, parabola–soliton interaction, cubic–parabola–soliton resonance, kink behavior, and singular waves. These results not only illustrate the merits of the proposed method in deriving new exact solutions but also novel dynamical behaviors in the (3 + 1)-dimensional nonlinear evolution equation.

     

Resonant solutions and breathers to the BKP equation

In this paper, we derive resonant and breather solutions from multi-soliton solutions of the B-type Kadomtsev–Petviashvili (BKP) equation of fourth order via the Hirota bilinear method. We first discuss N-soliton solutions of the BKP equation and use the linear superposition principle to generate N-resonant solutions. Subsequently, we construct complexiton and breather solutions and finally, study the dynamics of some selected solutions with the aid of 3D plots, contour plots and density plots.

     

Nonstructural geometric discontinuities in finite element/multibody system analysis

Existing multibody system (MBS) algorithms treat articulated system components that are not rigidly connected as separate bodies connected by joints that are governed by nonlinear algebraic equations. As a consequence, these MBS algorithms lead to a highly nonlinear system of coupled differential and algebraic equations. Existing finite element (FE) algorithms, on the other hand, do not lead to a constant mesh inertia matrix in the case of arbitrarily large relative rigid body rotations. In this paper, new FE/MBS meshes that employ linear connectivity conditions and allow for arbitrarily large rigid body displacements between the finite elements are introduced. The large displacement FE absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) is used to obtain linear element connectivity conditions in the case of large relative rotations between the finite elements of a mesh. It is shown in this paper that a linear formulation of pin (revolute) joints that allow for finite relative rotations between two elements connected by the joint can be systematically obtained using ANCF finite elements. The algebraic joint constraint equations, which can be introduced at a preprocessing stage to efficiently eliminate redundant position coordinates, allow for deformation modes at the pin joint definition point, and therefore, this new joint formulation can be considered as a generalization of the pin joint formulation used in rigid MBS analysis. The new pin joint deformation modes that are the result of C ⁰ continuity conditions, allow for the calculations of the pin joint strains which can be discontinuous as the result of the finite relative rotation between the elements. This type of discontinuity is referred to in this paper as nonstructural discontinuity in order to distinguish it from the case of structural discontinuity in which the elements are rigidly connected. Because ANCF finite elements lead to a constant mass matrix, an identity generalized mass matrix can be obtained for the FE mesh despite the fact that the finite elements of the mesh are not rigidly connected. The relationship between the nonrational ANCF finite elements and the B-spline representation is used to shed light on the potential of using ANCF as the basis for the integration of computer aided design and analysis (I-CAD-A). When cubic interpolation is used in the FE/ANCF representation, C ⁰ continuity is equivalent to a knot multiplicity of three when computational geometry methods such as B-splines are used. C ² ANCF models which ensure the continuity of the curvature and correspond to B-spline knot multiplicity of one can also be obtained. Nonetheless, B-spline and NURBS representations cannot be used to effectively model T-junctions that can be systematically modeled using ANCF finite elements which employ gradient coordinates that can be conveniently used to define element orientations in the reference configuration. Numerical results are presented in order to demonstrate the use of the new formulation in developing new chain models.     

Numerical calculation of nonlinear normal modes in structural systems

This paper presents two methods for numerical calculation of nonlinear normal modes (NNMs) in multi-degree-of-freedom, conservative, nonlinear structural dynamics models. The approaches used are briefly described as follows. Method 1: Starting with small amplitude initial conditions determined by a selected mode of the associated linear system, a small amount of negative damping is added in order to “artificially destabilize” the system; numerical integration of the system equations of motion then produces a simulated response in which orbits spiral outward essentially in the nonlinear modal manifold of interest, approximately generating this manifold for moderate to strong nonlinearity. Method 2: Starting with moderate to large amplitude initial conditions proportional to a selected linear mode shape, perform numerical integration with the coefficient ε of the nonlinearity contrived to vary slowly from an initial value of zero; this simulation methodology gradually transforms the initially flat eigenspace for ε = 0 into the manifold existing quasi-statically for instantaneous values of ε. The two methods are efficient and reasonably accurate and are intended for use in finding NNMs, as well as interesting behavior associated with them, for moderately and strongly nonlinear systems with relatively many degrees of freedom (DOFs).