Tribomechadynamics Challenge 2021: A Multi-harmonic Balance Analysis from Imperial College London

This work presents the approach and results of the Dynamics Group at Imperial College in face of the Tribomechadynamics 2021 challenge. The challenge encourages to obtain the best blind prediction of a benchmark structure so that a transversal comparison, among the groups working in nonlinear studies, is done. The approach of the Dynamics Group consists in predicting the behaviour due to friction nonlinearities at the location where more energy dissipation is observed. The results show a slight softening in the contact with an overall shifting of the linear frequency of 2.6% and a damping increase of about 1.5% with respect to the linear damping. The effect of the contact is modest, given the lack of dissipated energy and the fact that geometric nonlinearities are not considered throughout this study.