Computational Identification of Non-Linear Damping in an Aeroelastic System

An energy-based method is proposed to identify damping parameters from time histories
of responses to sets of single-frequency harmonic excitation. The method is intended to be
practically applicable to real structures and is able to identify the value of viscous damping,
Coulomb friction and eventually other forms of non-linear damping models in aeroelastic
systems. The inputs required are simply the accelerometer signals and the forces applied.
It will be shown that if the system is undergoing Limit Cycle Oscillations, no external force
is required for the identification process.