An asymptotic expansion-based method for a spectral approach in equivalent statistical linearization

Equivalent linearization consists in replacing a nonlinear system with an equivalent linear one whose parameters are tuned with regard to the minimization of a suitable function. In particular, the Gaussian equivalent linearization expresses the properties of an equivalent linear system in terms of the mean vector and the covariance matrix of the responses, which are the unknowns of the optimization problem in a spectral approach. Even though the system has been linearized, the resulting set of equations is nonlinear. The computational effort in this method pertains to the solution of a possibly large set of nonlinear algebraic equations involving integrals and inversions of full matrices. This work proposes to develop and apply an asymptotic expansion-based method to facilitate and to improve the statistical linearization for large nonlinear structures. The proposed developments demonstrate that for slightly to moderately coupled nonlinear systems, the equivalent linearization can be applied with an appropriate modal approach and eventually seen as a convergent series initiated with the stochastic response of a main decoupled linear system. With this method, the computational effort is attractively reduced, the conditioning of the set of nonlinear algebraic equations is improved and inversion of full transfer matrices and repeated integrations are avoided. The paper gives a formal description of the method and illustrates its implementation and performances with the computation of stationary responses of nonlinear structures subject to coherent random excitation fields.