Applications of the integral equation method on nonlinear multi degree of freedom vibration systems

Abstract

This paper compares the accuracy of the integral equation method and the multiple scales method in solving the amplitude equation of multi degree of freedom nonlinear vibration systems. We consider three examples: a two-degree-of-freedom stainless-steel beam system controlled by a saturation controller, a three-degree-of-freedom rotating compressor blade model and a four-degree-of-freedom horizontally supported Jeffcott-rotor system controlled by a PPF controller. The amplitude equations are obtained by applying the integral equation method and the method of multiple scales. The stability analysis is achieved based on the Floquet theory together with Routh–Hurwitz criterion. Furthermore, we modified the iterative procedure of the integral equation method to make the analytic approximate solution more accurate. Finally, the analyses show that in most cases, the analytical solutions obtained by the integral equation method are more excellent agreement with the numerical solutions than the most commonly used method of multiple scales. Therefore, the integral equation method is worth popularizing to obtain the approximate analytical solutions of the multi-degree-of-freedom nonlinear vibration system.