Passive flutter suppression using a nonlinear tuned vibration absorber

A recent study showed that the addition of a linear tuned vibration absorber could increase the flutter speed of a rigid wing with pitch and flap degrees of freedom by about 35%. However, the absorber was turning the initial super-critical bifurcation into a sub-critical one. This work shows numerically that adding a nonlinear restoring force to the absorber can restore the su- percritical behaviour of the bifurcation and further reduce the post-instability limit cycle amplitude.