Clearance-type nonlinear energy sinks for enhancing performance in electroacoustic wave energy harvesting

This paper explores a clearance-type nonlinear energy sink (NES) for increasing electrical energy harvested from non-stationary mechanical waves, such as those encountered during impact and intermittent events. The key idea is to trap energy in the NES such that it can be harvested over a time period longer than that afforded by the passing disturbance itself. Analytical, computational, and experimental techniques are employed to optimize the energy sink, explore qualitative behavior (to include bifurcations), and verify enhanced performance. Unlike traditionally studied single-DOF NESs, both subdomains of the NES (i.e., on either side of the clearance) contain displaceable degrees of freedom, increasing the complexity of the analytical solution approach. However, closed-form solutions are found which quantify the relationship between the impact amplitude and the energy produced, parameterized by system properties such as the harvester effective resistance, the clearance gap, and the domain mass and stiffness. Bifurcation diagrams and trends therein provide insight into the number and state of impact events at the NES as excitation amplitude increases. Moreover, a closed-form Poincaré map is derived which maps one NES impact location to the next, greatly simplifying the analysis while providing an important tool for follow-on bifurcation studies. Finally, a series of representative experiments are carried out to realize the benefits of using clearance-type nonlinearities to trap wave energy and increase the net harvested energy.     

Vibration suppression of a geometrically nonlinear beam with boundary inertial nonlinear energy sinks

Nonlinear Dynamics - As a simplified model of structures of many kinds, the Euler Bernoulli beam has proved useful for studying vibration suppression. In order to meet engineering design...     

Performance measures for targeted energy transfer and resonance capture cascading in nonlinear energy sinks

In vibrating mechanical systems, the targeted energy transfer mechanism (TET) of nonlinear energy sinks (NES) is employed as an alternative to linear tuned mass dampers (TMD) as passive vibrations absorbers for transient vibrations. The major advantages a NES has over a linear TMD are (1) an increased robustness to detuning and (2) the ability to dissipate multiple frequencies with only a single NES through so-called resonance capture cascading (RCC). The performance, especially the speed, of TET and RCC has rarely been a topic of research. In this research, algebraic performance measures for the speed of both TET and RCC are derived, called the pumping time and the cascading time, respectively. It shows that cascading time can be seen as a sum of single-mode pumping times, by introducing a novel modal decomposition. The strength of both measures is that they do not require numerical simulations, allowing easy optimization of the NES. The influence of different nonlinearities on the TET and RCC performance is investigated. Actual numerical simulations presented in the study validate the merit of both the pumping time and cascading time.     

Targeted energy transfer with parallel nonlinear energy sinks,part II: theory and experiments

In this paper governing equations of general multi degrees of freedom (dof) systems with trees of parallel Nonlinear Energy Sink (NES) devices at each dof are derived. Then these equations are summarized for a 4 dof structure with two parallel NES at the 4^th dof in order to control the first mode of the system. A prototype four storey structure with two parallel NES at the top floor is studied experimentally. The NES of the mentioned system is designed by endowing the suggested method in the Part I of this paper. A couple of experimental tests are carried out on the structure at the DGCB laboratory of the ENTPE, France. The aim is to control the first mode of the compound nonlinear system by demonstrating the efficiency of the parallel NES systems on the intended task.     

Vibration suppression of an elastic beam with boundary inerter-enhanced nonlinear energy sinks

Acta Mechanica Sinica - Nonlinear vibration absorbers have been widely used for vibration suppression of elastic structures, but they were usually placed within the structures. However, designing...     

Targeted energy transfer between 2-D wing and nonlinear energy sinks and their dynamic behaviors

Nonlinear Dynamics - The flow-induced vibration of two-dimensional wing coupled with two nonlinear energy sinks (NESs) under freestream is studied by numerical methods, and the relationship between...     

Effects of viscoelasticity on the stability and bifurcations of nonlinear energy sinks

Due to the increasing use of passive absorbers to control unwanted vibrations,many studies have been done on energy absorbers ideally, but the lack of studies of real environmental conditions on these absorbers is felt. The present work investigates the effect of viscoelasticity on the stability and bifurcations of a system attached to a nonlinear energy sink(NES). In this paper, the Burgers model is assumed for the viscoelasticity in an NES, and a linear oscillator system is considered for inve...     

Vibration suppression and higher branch responses of beam with parallel nonlinear energy sinks

The effects of nonlinear energy sink (NES) on vibration suppression of a simply supported beam are investigated in this work. The slow flow equations of the system are derived by using complexification–averaging method, and the validity of the derivation is verified. By comparing the vibration absorption of single and parallel NESs of equal mass, it is found that the latter exhibits superior vibration absorption performance. In addition, the parallel NES can eliminate higher branch responses of the system under the harmonic load. Furthermore, it is found that parallel NES can eliminate the higher branches of the system more effectively by tuning nonlinear stiffness and damping. Moreover, the thermal effect on natural frequencies of the simply supported beam is considered, and the influences of the parallel NES’s parameters on the energy dissipation rate under shock load are investigated. The nonlinear responses of the simply supported beam with parallel NES under harmonic load and with the increase of temperature are described.     

Targeted energy transfer with parallel nonlinear energy sinks. Part I: Design theory and numerical results

In this paper, we study a Targeted Energy Transfer (TET) problem between a p degrees-of-freedom (dof) linear master structure and several coupled parallel slave Nonlinear Energy Sink (NES) systems. In detail, each lth dof l=1,2,…,p contains n _l parallel NES; so the linear structure has (n ₁+n ₂+⋅⋅⋅+n _l +⋅⋅⋅+n _p ) NES. We are interested to study analytically the TET phenomenon during the first mode of the compound system. To this end, complexification, averaging, and multiple scales methods are used.     

Dynamics of two vibro-impact nonlinear energy sinks in parallel under periodic and transient excitations

A linear oscillator (LO) coupled with two vibro-impact (VI) nonlinear energy sinks (NES) in parallel is studied under periodic and transient excitations, respectively. The objective is to study response regimes and to compare their efficiency of vibration control. Through the analytical study with multiple scales method, two slow invariant manifolds (SIM) are obtained for two VI NES, and different SIM that result from different clearances analytically supports the principle of separate activation. In addition, fixed points are calculated and their positions are applied to judge response regimes. Transient responses and modulated responses can be further explained. By this way, all analysis is around the most efficient response regime. Then, numerical results demonstrate two typical responses and validate the effectiveness of analytical prediction. Finally, basic response regimes are experimentally observed and analyzed, and they can well explain the complicated variation of responses and their corresponding efficiency, not only for periodic excitations with a fixed frequency or a range of frequency, but also for transient excitation. Generally, vibration control is more effective when VI NES is activated with two impacts per cycle, whatever the types of excitation and the combinations of clearances. This observation is also well reflected by the separate activation of two VI NES with two different clearances, but at different levels of displacement amplitude of LO.     

Numerical study of flow-induced vibrations of cylinders under the action of nonlinear energy sinks (NESs)

An isolated two-dimensional circular cylinder with two linear degrees of freedom, parallel and perpendicular to the free-stream direction, and owning a nonlinear energy sink (NES) is investigated by fluid–structure interaction (FSI) simulations to assess vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) at moderate Reynolds numbers. Subsequently, the wake-induced vibration (WIV) of a pair of identical cylinders under the action of two NES in a tandem arrangement and in a proximity–wake interference regime is explored using the same approach. The NES parameters (mass, nonlinear stiffness and damping) are investigated to determine their effects on the dynamic response of a single degree of freedom (in transverse flow direction) coupled system by a reduced-order model based on an experimentally validated van der Pol oscillator. The CFD model coupled with FSI method is also validated against VIV experimental data for an isolated cylinder in a uniform flow. The study is aimed to investigate the effect of the passive suppression NES device on VIV and WIV. The amplitude response, trajectories of cylinder motion and temporal evolutions of vortex shedding are obtained by conducting a series of numerical simulations. It is found that placing a tuned NES in the cylinders can provide good suppression effect; however, the effectiveness is function of the reduced velocity.     

Fractional nonlinear dynamics of learning with memory

Nonlinear Dynamics - In this paper, we consider generalization of the Lucas model of learning (learning-by-doing) that is described in the paper Robert E. Lucas (Econometrica 61(2):251–272,...     

Usefulness of passive non-linear energy sinks in controlling galloping vibrations

The suppression of vibration amplitudes of an elastically-mounted square prism subjected to galloping oscillations by using a non-linear energy sink is investigated. The non-linear energy sink consists of a secondary system with linear damping and non-linear stiffness. A representative model that couples the transverse displacement of the square prism and the non-linear energy sink is constructed. A linear analysis is performed to determine the impacts of the non-linear energy sink parameters (mass, damping, and stiffness) on the coupled frequency and onset speed of galloping. It is demonstrated that increasing the damping of the non-linear energy sink can result in a significant increase in the onset speed of galloping. Then, the normal form of the Hopf bifurcation is derived to identify the type of instability and to determine the effects of the non-linear energy sink stiffness on the performance of the aeroelastic system near the bifurcation. The results show that the non-linear energy sink can be efficiently implemented to significantly reduce the galloping amplitude of the square prism. It is also shown that the multiple stable responses of the coupled aeroelastic system are obtained as well as the periodic responses, which are dependent on the considered non-linear energy sink parameters.     

Fractional damping enhances chaos in the nonlinear Helmholtz oscillator

Nonlinear Dynamics - The main purpose of this paper is to study both the underdamped and the overdamped dynamics of the nonlinear Helmholtz oscillator with a fractional-order damping. For that...     

Fractional integral sliding modes for robust tracking of nonlinear systems

Memory and heritage of differintegral operators require knowledge of the error manifold derivative at the initial time to sustain a sliding motion for any initial condition. Moreover, when the system is subject to (unknown) disturbances, such initial condition is unknown; thus, the enforcement of an integral sliding motion has been elusive with a chatter-less controller. In this paper, a novel fractional-order integral sliding mode (FISM) is proposed to maintain an invariant sliding mode due to an exact estimation of disturbances at first step. Our scheme is continuous after initial condition, avoiding chattering effects thanks to the topological properties of differintegral operators. In contrast to other FISM approaches, the proposed scheme induces a fractional-order reaching dynamics of order \((1+\nu )\in (1,2)\) to enforce an integral sliding mode for any initial condition, even in the presence of Hölder (continuous but not necessarily differentiable) disturbances and model uncertainties. Simulations show the reliability of the proposed scheme.     

Highly efficient nonlinear energy sink

The performance of the nonlinear energy sink (NES) that composed of a small mass and essentially nonlinear coupling stiffness with a linear structure is considerably enhanced here by including the negative linear and nonlinear coupling stiffness components. These negative linear and nonlinear stiffness components in the NES are realized here through the geometric nonlinearity of the transverse linear springs. By considering these components in the NES, very intersecting results for passive targeted energy transfer (TET) are obtained. The performance of this modified NES is found here to be much improved than that of all existing NESs studied up to date in the literature. Moreover, nearly 99 % of the input shock energy induced by impulse into the linear structures considered here has been found to be rapidly transferred and locally dissipated by the modified NES. In addition, this modified NES maintains its high performance of shock mitigation in a broadband fashion of the input initial energies where it keeps its high performance even for sever input energies. This is found to be achieved by an immediate cascade of several resonance captures at low- and high- nonlinear normal modes frequencies. The findings obtained here by including the negative linear and nonlinear stiffness components are expected to significantly enrich the application of these stiffness components in the TET field of such nonlinear oscillators.     

Targeted energy transfer of a parallel nonlinear energy sink

A parallel nonlinear energy sink(NES) is proposed and analyzed. The parallel NES is composed of a vibro-impact(VI) NES and a cubic NES. The dynamical equation is given, and the essential analytical investigation is carried out to deal with the cubic nonlinearity and impact nonlinearity. Multiple time-scale expansion is introduced, and the zeroth order is derived to give a rough outline of the system. The underlying Hamilton dynamic equation is given, and then the optimal stiffness is expressed. The clearance is regarded as a critical factor for the VI. Based on the periodical impact treatment by analytical investigation, the relationships of the cubic stiffness, the clearance, and the zeroth-order attenuation amplitude of the linear primary oscillator(LPO) are obtained.A cubic NES under the optimal condition is compared with the parallel NES. Harmonic signals, harmonic signals with noises, and the excitation generated by a second-order?lter are considered as the potential excitation forces on the system. The targeted energy transfer(TET) in the designed parallel NES is shown to be more e?cient.     

Fractional generalized synchronization in a class of nonlinear fractional order systems

Generalized synchronization in nonlinear fractional order systems occurs whether the states of one system by means of a functional mapping are identical to states of another. This mapping can be obtained if there exists a fractional differential primitive element whose elements are fractional derivatives which generate a differential transcendence basis. In this contribution we investigate the fractional generalized synchronization (FGS) problem for a class of strictly different nonlinear fractional order systems and we consider the master-slave synchronization scheme. As well as, of a natural manner we construct a fractional generalized observability canonical form, we introduce a fractional algebraic observability property, and we design a fractional dynamical controller able to achieve synchronization. These particular forms of FGS are illustrated with numerical results.