Multi-harmonic measurements and numerical simulations of nonlinear vibrations of a beam with non-ideal boundary conditions

This study presents a direct comparison of measured and predicted nonlinear vibrations of a clamped–clamped steel beam with non-ideal boundary conditions. A multi-harmonic comparison of simulations with measurements is performed in the vicinity of the primary resonance. First of all, a nonlinear analytical model of the beam is developed taking into account non-ideal boundary conditions. Three simulation methods are implemented to investigate the nonlinear behavior of the clamped–clamped beam. The method of multiple scales is used to compute an analytical expression of the frequency response which enables an easy updating of the model. Then, two numerical methods, the Harmonic Balance Method and a time-integration method with shooting algorithm, are employed and compared one with each other. The Harmonic Balance Method enables to simulate the vibrational stationary response of a nonlinear system projected on several harmonics. This study then proposes a method to compare numerical simulations with measurements of all these harmonics. A signal analysis tool is developed to extract the system harmonics’ frequency responses from the temporal signal of a swept sine experiment. An evolutionary updating algorithm (Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy), coupled with highly selective filters is used to identify both fundamental frequency and harmonic amplitudes in the temporal signal, at every moment. This tool enables to extract the harmonic amplitudes of the output signal as well as the input signal. The input of the Harmonic Balance Method can then be either an ideal mono-harmonic signal or a multi-harmonic experimental signal. Finally, the present work focuses on the comparison of experimental and simulated results. From experimental output harmonics and numerical simulations, it is shown that it is possible to distinguish the nonlinearities of the clamped–clamped beam and the effect of the non-ideal input signal.