Seismic base isolation by nonlinear mode localization

Summary In this paper, the performance of a nonlinear base-isolation system, comprised of a nonlinearly sprung subfoundation tuned in a 1∶1 internal resonance to a flexible mode of the linear primary structure to be isolated, is examined. The application of nonlinear localization to seismic isolation distinguishes this study from other base-isolation studies in the literature. Under the condition of third-order smooth stiffness nonlinearity, it is shown that a localized nonlinear normal mode (NNM) is induced in the system, which confines energy to the subfoundation and away from the primary or main structure. This is followed by a numerical analysis wherein the smooth nonlinearity is replaced by clearance nonlinearity, and the system is excited by ground motions representing near-field seismic events. The performance of the nonlinear system is compared with that of the corresponding linear system through simulation, and the sensitivity of the isolation system to several design parameters is analyzed. These simulations confirm the existence of the localized NNM, and show that the introduction of simple clearance nonlinearity significantly reduces the seismic energy transmitted to the main structure, resulting in significant attenuation in the response. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation Grant CMS 00-00060. The authors are grateful for this support.     

Suppression of nonlinear vibration system described by nonlinear differential equations using passive controller

In this paper, the linear absorber is proposed to reduce the vibration of a nonlinear dynamical system at simultaneous primary resonance and the presence of 1:1 internal resonance. This leads to a two-degree-of-freedom system subjected to external excitation force. The method of multiple scales perturbation technique is applied throughout to determine the analytical solution up to first-order approximations. The stability of the system near the one of the worst resonance case is studied using the frequency response equations. The effects of the different system and absorber parameters on the behavior of the main system are studied numerically. For validity, the numerical solution is compared with the analytical solution and gets a good agreement. Effectiveness of the absorber ( \(E_{a})\) is about 800 for the nonlinear vibrating system. The simulation results are achieved using MATLAB programs. At the end of the work, the comparison with the available published work is reported.     

A multi-objective optimization method for uncertain structures based on nonlinear interval number programming method

A multi-objective optimization method for uncertain structures is developed based on nonlinear interval number programming (NINP) method. The NINP method is employed to transform each uncertain objective function into a deterministic single-objective optimization problem. Using the constraint penalty function method, a deterministic multi-objective and non-constraint optimization problem is formulated in terms of penalty functions. Then the micro multi-objective genetic algorithm and the intergeneration projection genetic algorithm are adopted as outer layer and inner optimization operator to solve the nesting optimization problem, respectively. Finally, four numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the present method.     

Analysis of nonlinear sliding structures by modified stochastic linearization methods

Probabilistic characteristics of a sliding structure is investigated by using new versions of stochastic linearization technique. The structure is composed of base part and upper part, which are connected to each other in a spring-damping system. Coulomb friction between the base structure and earth ground is considered. Two alternative versions of stochastic linearization approach, suggested by X. Zhang and I. Elishakoff, respectively, are applied to such a sliding structure to evaluate its statistical properties. Compared with the results of Monte Carlo simulation, the two new approaches are performing much better than the conventional one in their applications to the sliding structure. Moreover, numerical results indicate that the criterion proposed by Elishakoff turns out to be superior to all other versions in the problem under study. Numerical results also suggest that the entire structure may be replaced by the rigid body in the sliding problem as long as the difference of velocity responses are considered less important than those of displacement responses.     

Chaotic ant swarm optimization with passive congregation

Chaotic ant swarm optimization (CASO) is a powerful chaos search algorithm for optimization problems, but it is often easy to be premature convergence. To overcome the weakness, this paper presents a CASO with passive congregation (CASOPC). Passive congregation is one type of biological information sharing mechanisms that allow animals to aggregate into groups and help to enhance the exploitation of animals. By introducing passive congregation strategy into the CASO, a modified evolution equation based on the CASO is proposed in the CASOPC. The modified evolution equation cannot only employ the parallel search of all ants and the well exploration ability of the CASO, but also stress and control the exploitation by passive congregation coefficient c in the stage of evolution. Due to linearly increasing c in the CASOPC, the exploration and exploitation ability of ants are well balanced so that premature convergence can be avoided and good performance can be achieved. In order to estimate the capability of the CASOPC, it is tested with a set of 5 benchmark functions with 30 dimensions and compared to the CASO. Experimental results indicate that the CASOPC improves the search performance on the benchmark functions significantly.     

Extended complexification method to study nonlinear passive control

Nonlinear Dynamics - The present research work aims to design a passive vibration control based on nonlinear energy pumping. An extended asymptotic approach is introduced based on the invariant...     

狭长结构拓扑优化

通常的拓扑优化是在给定区域内,通过设计材料分布实现结构拓扑形式优化。对于设计区域的长和宽相近的平面问题,现行的方法可得到清晰的拓扑。但是,狭长结构的设计域具有大的长宽比。为了保证基结构包含足够多的拓扑形式,宽度方向要求有一定量的有限元分割,从而导致整体网格数和设计变量多、问题求解困难。本文提出了通过基本结构拼装的狭长结构拓扑优化方法,建立了以最小平均柔顺性密度为目标、同时设计材料分布和设计域几何尺度的基本结构的拓扑优化问题的数学提法和求解方法。利用所提出的问题提法和求解方法,设计了狭长悬臂梁的拓扑形式,讨论了危险截面的弯矩与剪力的相对值以及材料体积约束对拓扑形式的影响。数值结果表明,不同的弯矩与剪力的相对数值对应不同的拓扑形式,随着相对数值的增加,梁的拓扑形式由类桁架结构逐渐变成竖直立板加强的框架式结构。     

连续体结构拓扑优化

对连续体结构的拓扑优化，给出一种工程实用方法：将拓扑优化分两步进行，首先解决在弹性体内哪些区域需要删除的问题，然后再确定删除区的边界，这种方法适用于各种约束条件的问题，而且拓扑清晰。     

Tuning inertial nonlinearity for passive nonlinear vibration control

Nonlinear Dynamics - This paper examines the viability of completely passive control approach based on multiple timescale perturbation methods to elicit desired dynamic cancellation or suppression...     

Fully nonlinear modeling of radiated waves generated by floating flared structures

The nonlinear radiated waves generated by a structure in forced motion, are simulated numerically based on the potential theory. A fully nonlinear numerical model is developed by using a higher-order boundary element method （HOBEM）. In this model, the instantaneous body position and the transient free surface are updated at each time step. A Lagrangian technique is employed as the time marching scheme on the free surface. The mesh regridding and interpolation methods are adopted to deal with the possible numerical instability. Several auxiliary functions are proposed to calculate the wave loads indirectly, instead of directly predicting the temporal derivative of the velocity potential. Numerical experiments are carried out to simulate the heave motions of a submerged sphere in infinite water depth, the heave and pitch motions of a truncated flared cylinder in finite depth. The results are verified against the published numerical results to ensure the effectiveness of the proposed model. Moreover, a series of higher harmonic waves and force components are obtained by the Fourier transformation to investigate the nonlinear effect of oscillation frequency. The difference among fully nonlinear, body-nonlinear and linear results is analyzed. It is found that the nonlinearity due to free surface and body surface has significant influences on the numerical results of the radiated waves and forces.     

A nonlinear subspace-prediction error method for identification of nonlinear vibrating structures

The industrial structural systems always contain various kinds of nonlinear factors. Recently, a number of new approaches have been proposed to identify those nonlinear structures. One of the promising methods is the nonlinear subspace identification method (NSIM). The NSIM is derived from the principals of the stochastic subspace identification method (SSIM) and the internal feedback formulation. First, the nonlinearities in the system are regarded as internal feedback forces to its underlying linear dynamic system. The linear and nonlinear components of the identified system can be decoupled. Second, the SSIM is employed to identify the nonlinear coefficients and the frequency response functions of the underlying linear system. A typical SSIM always consists of two steps. The first step makes a projection of certain subspaces generated from the data to identify the extended observability matrix. The second one is to estimate the system matrices from the identified observability matrix. Since the calculated process of the NSIM is non-iterative and this method poses no additional problems on the part of parameterization, the NSIM becomes a promising approach to identify nonlinear structural systems. However, the result generated by the NSIM has its deficiency. One of the drawbacks is that the identified results calculated by the NSIM are not the optimal solutions which reduce the identified accuracy. In this study, a new time-domain subspace method, namely the nonlinear subspace-prediction error method (NSPEM), is proposed to improve the identified accuracy of nonlinear systems. In the improved version of the NSIM, the prediction error method (PEM) is used to reestimate those estimated coefficient matrices of the state-space model after the application of NSIM. With the help of the PEM, the identified results obtained by the NSPEM can truly become the optimal solution in the least square sense. Two numerical examples with local nonlinearities are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed algorithm, showing advantages with respect to the NSIM in a noise environment.     

Multi-objective discrete optimization of laminated structures

The paper is dedicated to the multi-objective optimal design of laminated composite structures. In order to provide sound-engineering designs, a few alternative and/or conflicting objectives must be taken into account. It is reasonable to consider the multi-objective optimization as a sensible enrichment with respect to single objective optimization, since the solutions are enforced to result optimal at the same time with respect to different objectives. Multi-objective optimization methods gained in the last years a growing interest in engineering, due to the possibility to determine a design possessing at the same time optimality with respect to different conflicting requirements. This problem is approached and suitably solved by Evolution Strategies, a computational algorithm based on Darwinian theories, that allow to solve optimization problems without using gradient-based information on the objective functions and the constraints. The presence of multiple objectives has been taken into account coupling the algorithm with a cooperative game theoretic approach and, for sake of comparison, with other methods, such as weighted objectives or Trade-off. With the game theoretic approach, all objective functions have the same importance, and the optimal solution is found using a bargaining function. The ply orientations in the stacking sequence of the laminate are the assumed design variables, of discrete type, a common situation in engineering practice. The results obtained for two different typical laminate designs show the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Stabilization of switched nonlinear systems with passive and non-passive subsystems

This paper addresses the stabilization issue for switched nonlinear systems with passive and non-passive subsystems. For any given average dwell time, if the total activation time rate of passive subsystems in some time interval is larger than any given constant, no matter how small it is, feedback controllers can be designed with respect to the average dwell time and the activation time rate of passive subsystems to achieve exponential stabilization. A numeral example shows the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Sizing optimization of truss structures by method of centers and force formulation

This paper describes a new approach to optimum weight design of truss structures. The force method is incorporated in an optimization algorithm based on the method of center points. Design variables are the member cross-sectional areas and the redundant forces evaluated for each independent loading condition acting on the structure. The optimization method utilizes the largest hyperspheres inscribed within the feasible space. The method of hyperspheres has been enhanced here to handle the compatibility equality constraints as well. By including the analysis step in the optimization cycle there is no longer the need to perform separate structural analyses thus saving computation time. The viability and efficiency of the proposed method are demonstrated for truss structures subject to multiple loading conditions and constraints on member stresses, nodal displacement and minimum gage. Numerical results are compared with those reported in the literature.     

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.     

Determination of stability in nonlinear analysis of structures

Summary This paper present a systematic study of the problems of structural nonlinear instability. Emphasis is on the treatment of coincident critical points and the development of available theory making it possible to explore all postbuckling paths. To achieve such an aim, the paper first studies the asymptotic forms of general postbuckling equlibrium equations in the neighbourhood of a critical point. It is found that the asymptotic equations are different from each other for types of different critical points. These different asymptotic equations are derived and the stability is determined numerically.

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Stabilitätsbestimmung in der nichtlinearen Strukturanalyse

Übersicht Der Beitrag zeigt eine systematische Studie zu Problemen der Instabilität nichtlinearer Strukturen. Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf der Behandlung von koinzidenten kritischen Punkten und der Entwicklung einer Theory zur Auffindung aller Nachbeulzweige. Hierzu werden zunächst die asymptotischen Formen der allgemeinen Nachbeul-Gleichgewichtsgleichungen in der Umgebung eines kritischen Punktes untersucht. Es zeigt sich, daß sich die asymptotischen Gleichungen für Typen verschiedener kritischer Punkte voneinander unterscheiden. Diese unterschiedlichen asymptotischen Gleichungen werden hergeleitet und die Stabilität wird numerisch bestimmt.

     

Multicriteria optimization of laminated composite material structures

The search for the optimum design of a given structure is a basic aspect of structural analysis. In recent years there has been a renewed interest in structural optimization, particularly in the field of composite material structures. The aim is often to obtain the best solution that is able to respect both the technical and the economic requirements. In this paper, the optimization process is pursued as the determination of the Pareto-optimal curves for composite material structures. The problem has been tackled by means of an analytical optimization methodology (trade-off method) appropriately transformed into a design procedure. A sensitivity analysis is also performed, in order to try out the measure in which the optimal solutions are affected by the variation of the design variables. Two examples are presented, concerning a hemispherical shell and a cylindrical shell.

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Sommario Molti problemi della ricerca dell'ottimo progettuale presentano la difficoltà di coinvolgere nella soluzione più obiettivi da considerare simultaneamente. Il problema risulta piuttosto complesso (in particolare nel caso di strutture in materiale composito) quando gli obiettivi, spesso contrastanti, hanno natura diversa e quindi risultano non facilmente combinabili fra loro. Tale problema si pone spesso quando si vuole da un lato aumentare l'affidabilità strutturale e dall'altro diminuire i costi della struttura. Nel presente articolo, vengono affrontati alcuni aspetti dell'ottimizzazione di strutture in materiale composito: a tale scopo viene presentata una procedura di ottimizzazione per problemi multi-obiettivo che, avvalendosi del Trade-off method, è in grado di determinare la curva degli ottimi di Pareto. Successivamente viene effettuata un analisi di sensitività allo scopo di valutare la sensibilità delle soluzioni ottimali nei confronti della aleatorietà delle variabili di progetto. Vengono presentati in tal senso due esempi relativi a strutture in materiale composito.