Analysis of nonlinear steady state vibration of a multi-degree-of-freedom system using component mode synthesis method

In this paper, an analytical approach for nonlinear forced vibration of a multi-degree-of-freedom system is proposed using the component mode synthesis method. The whole system is divided into some components and a nonlinear modal equation of each component is derived using the free-interface vibration modes. The modal equations of all components and the conjunction conditions are solved simultaneously, and then the modal responses of components are derived. Finally, the dynamic responses of the whole system can be obtained. The degrees of freedom of modal equations can be reduced when the lower vibration modes are only adopted in each component. As a numerical example, a nine-degree-of-freedom system is considered, in which all spring have cubic type nonlinearity. As a result, it is shown that when there are no rigid modes in components, the compliance by the proposed method agrees very well with the exact one even if the lower vibration modes of components are only adopted. The other hand, in the case with rigid modes in components, the compliance has a little error compared with the exact result. It is recognized that the method proposed is very effective in the case without rigid modes in components for the actual application.