Switching-induced stable limit cycles

Physical limits place bounds on the divergent behaviour of dynamical systems. The paper explores this situation, providing an example where generator field-voltage limits capture behaviour, giving rise to a stable, though non-smooth, limit cycle. It is shown that shooting methods can be adapted to solve for such non-smooth switching-induced limit cycles. By continuing branches of switching-induced and smooth limit cycles, the paper established the co-existence of equilibria, smooth and non-smooth limit cycles. Furthermore, it is shown that when branches of switching-induced and smooth limit cycles merge, the limit cycles are annihilated at a grazing bifurcation.     

Piecewise constrained optimization harmonic balance method for predicting the limit cycle oscillations of an airfoil with various nonlinear structures

A method is proposed to calculate the periodic solutions of piecewise nonlinear systems. The method is based on analytical derivation of nonlinear multi-harmonic equations of motion. Since periodic variations of nonlinear forces are characterized by different states, the vibration cycle is broken into sequential transition intervals according to the instant sets of state transitions. Analytical formulations of the harmonic coefficients of the nonlinear forces and its derivatives with respect to the harmonic coefficients of displacements are developed. Sensitivities of the harmonic coefficients of periodic solutions are determined for constructing explicit expressions for vibration amplitude levels as a function of structural parameters. Numerical investigations of the limit cycle oscillations and its sensitivities of an airfoil with different piecewise nonlinearities have been performed. The results show that the developed method is capable of determining the periodic solutions and its sensitivities with respect to the structural parameters. In order to guarantee time continuity of the nonlinear force, for the hysteresis model it is not right to track the periodic solutions by using the preload or freeplay as the continuation parameters.     

Bifurcation of limit cycles in fluid film bearings

Rotors supported by journal bearings may become unstable due to self-excited vibrations when a critical rotor speed is exceeded. Linearised analysis is usually used to determine the stability boundaries. Non-linear bifurcation theory or numerical integration is required to predict stable or unstable periodic oscillations close to the critical speed. In this paper, a dynamic model of a short journal bearing is used to analyse the bifurcation of the steady state equilibrium point of the journal centre. Numerical continuation is applied to determine stable or unstable limit cycles bifurcating from the equilibrium point at the critical speed. Under certain working conditions, limit cycles themselves are shown to disappear beyond a certain rotor speed and to exhibit a fold bifurcation giving birth to unstable limit cycles surrounding the stable supercritical limit cycles. Numerical integration of the system of equations is used to support the results obtained by numerical continuation. Numerical simulation permitted a partial validation of the analytical investigation.     

Separatrices and limit cycles of strongly nonlinear oscillators by the perturbation-incremental method

The perturbation-incremental method is applied to determine the separatrices and limit cycles of strongly nonlinear oscillators. Conditions are derived under which a limit cycle is created or destroyed. The latter case may give rise to a homoclinic orbit or a pair of heteroclinic orbits. The limit cycles and the separatrices can be calculated to any desired degree of accuracy. Stability and bifurcations of limit cycles will also be discussed.     

Improving convergence of incremental harmonic balance method using homotopy analysis method

We have deduced incremental harmonic balance an iteration scheme in the （IHB） method using the harmonic balance plus the Newton-Raphson method. Since the convergence of the iteration is dependent upon the initial values in the iteration, the convergent region is greatly restricted for some cases. In this contribution, in order to enlarge the convergent region of the IHB method, we constructed the zeroth-order deformation equation using the homotopy analysis method, in which the IHB method is employed to solve the deformation equation with an embedding parameter as the active increment. Taking the Duffing and the van der Pol equations as examples, we obtained the highly accurate solutions. Importantly, the presented approach renders a convenient way to control and adjust the convergence.     

INCREMENTAL HARMONIC BALANCE METHOD FOR AIRFOIL FLUTTER WITH MULTIPLE STRONG NONLINEARITIES

The incremental harmonic balance method was extended to analyze the flutter of systems with multiple structural strong nonlinearities. The strongly nonlinear cubic plunging and pitching stiffness terms were considered in the flutter equations of two-dimensional airfoil. First, the equations were transferred into matrix form, then the vibration process was divided into the persistent incremental processes of vibration moments. And the expression of their solutions could be obtained by using a certain amplitude as control parameter in the harmonic balance process, and then the bifurcation, limit cycle flutter phenomena and the number of harmonic terms were analyzed. Finally, numerical results calculated by the Runge-Kutta method were given to verify the results obtained by the proposed procedure. It has been shown that the incremental harmonic method is effective and precise in the analysis of strongly nonlinear flutter with multiple structural nonlinearities.     

Implicit solution of harmonic balance equation system using the LU-SGS method and one-step Jacobi/Gauss-Seidel iteration

ABSTRACT

This paper presents efficient alternative numerical methods for an implicit solution of the harmonic balance equation system for analysing temporal periodic unsteady flows. The proposed method employs approximate factorisation to decouple the common residual term and the time spectral source term of a harmonic balance equation system when it is discretised implicitly. With this approximate factorisation, the complexity of implicit solution of the discrete system is greatly reduced. The common residual term can be dealt with using a lower-upper symmetric-Gauss-Seidel (LU-SGS) method and the time spectral source term is integrated using a Jacobi iteration (JI) or one step Gauss-Seidel (GS) iteration, leading to the LU-SGS/JI method or LU-SGS/GS method. The NASA stage 35 compressor and the 1.5 stage Aachen turbine were used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods in stabilising solution and its advantages in comparison with the existing lower-upper symmetric-Gauss-Seidel/block Jacobi (LU-SGS/BJ) method. The LU-SGS/GS method and the LU-SGS/JI method are more robust than the LU-SGS/BJ method in stabilising solution. The LU-SGS/GS method also has faster and tighter convergence and lower memory consumption in comparison with the LU-SGS/BJ method.     

Necessary and sufficient condition for the correct formulation of boundary integral equations of harmonic functions

A necessary and sufficient condition for the correct formulation of boundary integral equations of harmonic functions is established in the present paper. A super-determined problem of harmonic functions is proposed for the first time. Then a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of solution of the super-determined problem is proved. At the same time, it is a necessary and sufficient condition for the correct formulation of boundary integral equations with direct unknown quantities. A relation between boundary integral equations and variational principles is discovered for the first time. And a one-to-one correspondence between boundary integral equations with direct and indirect unknown quantities is indicated. The concept and route of the present paper can be applied to other boundary value problems possessing variational principles.     

Determination of limit cycles for a modified van der Pol oscillator

The determination of amplitude and period of limit cycles is a crucial question in non-linear mechanics. In this paper, a van der Pol oscillator containing a periodic potential is considered. Amplitude and period of limit cycles are calculated by He’s variational method and Krylov–Bogoliubov–Mitropolsky (KBM) method.     

The stability of limit cycles in nonlinear systems

In this paper, a necessary condition is first presented for the existence of limit cycles in nonlinear systems, then four theorems are presented for the stability, instability, and semistabilities of limit cycles in second order nonlinear systems. Necessary and sufficient conditions are given in terms of the signs of first and second derivatives of a continuously differentiable positive function at the vicinity of the limit cycle. Two examples considering nonlinear systems with familiar limit cycles are presented to illustrate the theorems.     

Continuation of limit cycles near saddle homoclinic points using splines in phase space

We present a new algorithm for continuation of limit cycles of autonomous systems as a system parameter is varied. The algorithm works in phase space with an ordered set of points on the limit cycle, along with spline interpolation. Currently popular algorithms in bifurcation analysis packages compute time-domain approximations of limit cycles using either shooting or collocation. The present approach seems useful for continuation near saddle homoclinic points, where it encounters a corner while time-domain methods essentially encounter a discontinuity (a relatively short period of rapid variation). Other phase space-based algorithms use rescaled arclength in place of time, but subsequently resemble the time-domain methods. Compared to these, we introduce additional freedom through a variable stretching of arclength based on local curvature, through the use of an auxiliary index-based variable. Several numerical examples are presented. Comparisons with results from the popular package, MATCONT, are favorable close to saddle homoclinic points.     

On the equations of non-linear vibrations

The purpose of this short paper is to show that equations of non-linear vibrations whose linear parts involve two coefficient matrices can be simplified so that the linear portions become uncoupled. Equivalence transformations are utilized in the simplification, which can substantially streamline any subsequent analysis.     

Unsteady rotor flow analysis using a diagonally implicit harmonic balance method and an overset mesh topology

The diagonally implicit harmonic balance method is developed in an overset mesh topology and applied to unsteady rotor flows analysis. Its efficiency is by reducing the complexity of a fully implicit harmonic balance method which becomes more flexible in handling the higher harmonics of the flow solutions. Applied to the overset mesh topology, the efficiency of the method becomes greater by reducing the number of solution interpolations required during the entire solution procedure as the method reduces the unsteady computation into periodic steady state. To verify the accuracy and efficiency of the method, both hovering and unsteady forward flight of Caradonna and Tung and AH-1G rotors are solved. Compared with wind-tunnel experiments, the numerical results demonstrate good agreements at computational cost an order of magnitude more efficient than the conventional time-accurate computation method. The proposed method has great potential in other engineering applications, including flapping wing vehicles, turbo-machinery, wind-turbines, etc.     

Resolution of Gibbs phenomenon using a modified pseudo-spectral operator in harmonic balance CFD solvers*

A new pseudo-spectral operator is developed for time-spectral harmonic balance solutions of periodic unsteady flows. The method utilises a mechanism similar to sigma-approximation technique with Lanczos filtering function that alters the inverse of the discrete Fourier transformation matrix, leading to a modified pseudo-spectral operator. The modified operator is then used instead of the original operator that mimics the time-derivative term of the unsteady governing equations. The modified operator is capable of damping high-frequency nonlinearities in the harmonic balance solution, thus alleviating the effects of high-frequency oscillations that result in Gibbs-type phenomena. The effectiveness and robustness of the technique are demonstrated through various test cases.     

A thermodynamic approach to non-linear viscoelasticity

We show that Extended Irreversible Thermodynamics (EIT) may be regarded as a unifying thermodynamic scheme which generates a variety of non-linear viscoelastic equations of state. In particular, we show how the so-called eight-constants Oldroyd model, with all its invariant properties, may be derived from the postulates of EIT. It is also shown that the structure of the thermodynamic based rheological equations of state is in complete agreement with that of the representation theorems formulation of constitutive relationships originally proposed by Rivlin and Ericksen. We discuss how more complex rheological models can be derived from higher order approximations of the theory. Finally, the connections between our approach and other related works are briefly discussed.     

A new approach to inverse problems of wave equations

We introduce a multi-cost-functional method for solving inverse problems of waveequations.This method has its simplicity,efficiency and good physical interpretation.It hasthe advantage of being programmed for two-or three-(space)dimensional problems as wellas for one-dimensional problems.     

On the local stability analysis of the approximate harmonic balance solutions

Periodic response of nonlinear oscillators is usually determined by approximate methods. In the "steady state" type methods, first an approximate solution for the steady state periodic response is determined, and then the local stability of this solution is determined by analyzing the equation of motion linearized about this predicted "solution". An exact stability analysis of this linear variational equation can provide erroneous stability type information about the approximate solutions. It is shown that a consistent stability type information about these solutions can be obtained only when the linearized variational equation is analyzed by approximate methods, and the level of accuracy of this analysis is consistent with that of the approximate solutions. It is demonstrated that these consistent stability results do not imply that the approximate solution is qualitatively correct. It is also shown that the difference between an approximate and the next higher order stability analysis can be used to "guess" the role of higher harmonics in the periodic response. This trial and error procedure can be used to ensure the qualitatively correct and numerically accurate nature of the approximate solutions and the corresponding stability analysis.     

Numerical comparison of two boundary element methods for plane harmonic functions

A direct boundary element method (BEM) has been studied in the paper based on a set of sufficient and necessary boundary integral equations (BIE) for the plane harmonic functions. The new sufficient and necessary BEM leads to accurate results while the conventional insufficient BEM will lead to inaccurate results when the conventional BIE has multiple solutions. Theoretical and numerical analyses show that it is beneficial to use the sufficient and necessary BEM, to avoid hidden dangers due to non-unique solution of the conventional BIE.     

A fast harmonic balance technique for periodic oscillations of an aeroelastic airfoil

The harmonic balance (HB) method is utilized to obtain the periodic solutions for the two-dimensional airfoil with cubic nonlinearity in pitch undergoing subsonic flow. In the course of formulating the HB algebraic system, the manipulation software Mathematica is employed to deal with the complex Fourier coefficients involved with the nonlinear term. In general, to solve the HB algebraic system, either a symbolic calculation or a numerical approximation of the Jacobian matrix is required in each iteration, which is computationally expensive. To remedy this drawback, the Jacobian matrix is explicitly derived in this paper. The effects of exploiting the explicit Jacobian matrix on the accuracy and efficiency of the HB method are investigated, through comparing with the case using a numerical Jacobian matrix calculated by a three-point difference technique. Moreover, the spectral analysis is applied to the periodic motions by the numerical method to provide insight into the distribution of the dominant frequencies, so as to provide a reasonable suggestion for the truncation of the Fourier series expansion in the HB method. In addition, a frequency modulation phenomenon is identified in the pitch motions via spectral analysis, whose effect on the accuracy of the HB method is examined both numerically and analytically. Finally, illustrative examples validate that the HB method with as many harmonics as the spectral analysis suggests can yield sufficiently accurate solutions.