Identification of Nonlinearities in Joints of a Wing Structure

¹ Advanced Structural Integrity and Vibration Research (ASIVR), Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, 26600 Pekan, Pahang, Malaysia
² Automotive Engineering Centre, Universiti Malaysia, Pahang, Malaysia
³ Centre for Engineering Dynamics, School of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3GH, UK

^a Corresponding author: mshahrir@ump.edu.my

Abstract

Nonlinear structural identification is essential in engineering. As new materials are being used andstructures become slender and lighter, nonlinear behaviour of structures becomes more important. There have been many studies into the development and application of system identification methods for structural nonlinearity based on changes in natural frequencies, mode shapes and damping ratios. A great challenge is to identify nonlinearity in large structural systems. Much work has been undertaken in the development of nonlinear system identification methods (e.g. Hilbert Transform, NARMAX, and Proper Orthogonal Decomposition), however, it is arguable that most of these methods are cumbersome when applied to realistic large structures that contain mostly linear modes with some local nonlinearity (e.g. aircraft engine pylon attachment to a wing). In this paper, a multi-shaker force appropriation method is developed to determine the underlying linear and nonlinear structural properties through the use of the measurement and generation of restoring force surfaces. One undamped mode is excited in each multi-shaker test. Essentially, this technique is a derivative of the restoring surface method and involves a non-linear curve fitting performed in modal space. A reduced finite element model is established and its effectiveness in revealing the nonlinear characteristics of the system is discussed. The method is demonstrated through both numerical simulations and experiments on a simple jointed laboratory structure with seeded faults, which represents an engine pylon structure that consists of a rectangular wing with two stores suspended underneath.