Control-based continuation is a recently developed approach for testing nonlinear dynamic systems in a controlled manner and exploring their dynamic features as system parameters are varied. In this paper, control-based continuation is adapted to follow the locus where system response and excitation are in quadrature, extracting the backbone curve of the underlying conservative system. The method is applied to a single-degree-of-freedom oscillator under base excitation, and the results are compared with the standard resonant-decay method

In this paper, the use of a tuned inerter damper (TID) as a vibration absorber is studied numerically and experimentally, with civil engineering applications in mind. Inerters complete the analogy between mechanical and electrical networks, as the mechanical element equivalent to a capacitor and were developed in the 2000s. Initially, inerters were used for applications in automotive engineering, where they are known as J-dampers. Recently, research has suggested that inerter-based networks could be used for civil engineering applications, offering interesting advantages over traditional tuned mass dampers. In the civil engineering context, research has been mainly theoretical, considering ideal inerters. Because the dynamics of an inerter device include nonlinearities, especially at the low frequencies associated with civil engineering applications, the performance of the TID device using an off-the-shelf inerter has been experimentally tested in the work presented here. The chosen system, comprising a host structure with a TID attached to it, was tested using real-time dynamic substructuring (RTDS) or hybrid testing. The inerter was tested physically, while the remaining components of the TID device, the spring and damper, together with the host structure, were simulated numerically. Displacements and forces at the interface between numerical and physical components are updated in real time. This numerical–physical split allows the optimisation of the TID parameters, because the values of the spring and the damper can be changed without altering the experimental setup. In addition, this configuration takes into account the inerter's potentially complex dynamics by testing it experimentally, together with the characteristics of the host structure. Developing RTDS tests for physical inertial substructures, where part of the fed back interface forces are proportional to acceleration, is a challenging task because of delays arising at the interface between the experimental and the numerical substructures. Problems associated with stability issues caused by delay and causality arise, because we are dealing with neutral and advanced delayed differential equations. A new approach for the substructuring algorithm is proposed, consisting of feeding back the measured force deviation from the ideal inerter instead of the actual force at the interface. The experimental results show that with appropriate retuning of the components in the TID device, the performance in the TID incorporating the real inerter device is close to the ideal inerter device. © 2016 The Authors. Structural Control and Health Monitoring published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We present a continuation method that enables one to track or continue branches of periodic orbits directly in an experiment when a parameter is changed. A control-based setup in combination with Newton iterations ensures that the periodic orbit can be continued even when it is unstable. This is demonstrated with the continuation of initially stable rotations of a vertically forced pendulum experiment through a fold bifurcation to find the unstable part of the branch.

Real-time dynamic substructuring is a powerful testing method, which brings together analytical, numerical and experimental tools for the study of complex structures. It consists of replacing one part of the structure with a numerical model, which is connected to the remainder of the physical structure (the substructure) by a transfer system. In order to provide reliable results, this hybrid system must remain stable during the whole test. A primary mechanism for destabilization of these type of systems is the delays which are naturally present in the transfer system. In this paper, we apply the dynamic substructuring technique to a nonlinear system consisting of a pendulum attached to a mechanical oscillator. The oscillator is modelled numerically and the transfer system is an actuator. The system dynamics is governed by two coupled second-order neutral delay differential equations. We carry out local and global stability analyses of the system and identify the delay dependent stability boundaries for this type of system. We then perform a series of hybrid experimental tests for a pendulum–oscillator system. The results give excellent qualitative and quantitative agreement when compared to the analytical stability results.