Modal Techniques for Remote Identification of Nonlinear Reactions at Gap-Supported Tubes Under Turbulent Excitation

Predictive computation of the nonlinear dynamical responses of gap-supported tubes subjected to flow excitation has been the subject of very active research. Nevertheless, there is a need for robust techniques capable of extracting, from the actual vibratory response data, information which is relevant for asserting the components integrity. The dynamical contact/impact (vibro-impact) forces are of paramount significance, as are the tube/support gaps. Following our previous studies in this field using wave-propagation techniques [1–3], we apply modal methods in the present paper for extracting such information. The dynamical support forces, as well as the vibratory responses at the support locations, are identified from one or several vibratory response measurements at remote transducers, from which the support gaps can be inferred. As for most inverse problems, the identification results prove quite sensitive to noise and modeling error problems. Therefore, topics discussed in the paper include regularization techniques to mitigate the effects of non-measured noise perturbations. In particular, a method is proposed to improve the identification of contact forces at the supports when the system is excited by an unknown distributed turbulence force field. The important topic of dealing with the imperfect knowledge of the modal parameters used to build the inverted transfer functions is addressed elsewhere [4]. Here, the extensive identifications presented are based on the exact modal parameters and performed on realistic numerical simulations of gap-supported tubes subjected to flow excitation. We can thus confront the identified dynamical support contact forces and vibratory motions at the gap-support with the actual values stemming from the original nonlinear computations, with overall satisfying results.