An Enhanced Nonlinear Energy Sink for Hybrid Bifurcation Control and Energy Harvesting From Aeroelastic Galloping Phenomena

Abstract

Galloping is a self-excited vibration problem that structures immersed in fluid flow can experience. Due to its essential nonlinear phenomena, the structure exhibits limit cycle oscillations (LCOs), which, at high levels, can lead to failure of the systems. This work proposes an investigation of electromagnetic-enhanced Nonlinear Energy Sinks (NES-EH) for the hybrid control of aeroelastic LCOs and energy harvesting. The study focuses on a prismatic bluff body with a linear suspension immersed in the airflow, using classical steady nonlinear modeling for aerodynamic loads. The conventional NES approach is adopted, employing cubic stiffness and linear damping. Additionally, a linear electromagnetic transducer is included in the assembly for the energy harvesting process. By combining the method of multiple scales with the Harmonic Balance Method, analytical solutions are derived to characterize the system's dynamics under the influence of the device. The different response domains and their respective boundaries induced by the NES-EH are characterized based on the bifurcation diagrams. Furthermore, a Slow Invariant Manifold characterization is presented for each induced response domain, and its significant features are discussed. Parametric studies are carried out based on bifurcation analyses to assess the effect of NES-EH parameters on the galloping system dynamics, which allows for designing the absorber parameters. The electrical resistance is optimized to maximize the harvested power. The optimal design of NES-EH is then compared with classical energy harvesting solutions for the galloping problem. Additionally, a thorough analysis of the Target Energy Transfer phenomenon is performed.