Reduced-order models for geometrically nonlinear vibrations of thin structures

When vibrating with large amplitudes, thin structures experience geometric nonlinearity due to the nonlinear relationship between strains and displacements. Because full-order nonlinear analysis on geometrically nonlinear models are computationally very expensive, the derivation of efficient reduced order models (ROMs) has always been a topic of interest. In this thesis, nonlinear reduction methods for building ROMs with geometric nonlinearity in the framework of the Finite Element (FE) procedure, are investigated. Three non-intrusive nonlinear reduction methods are specifically investigated and systematically compared. They are: implicit condensation and expansion (ICE), modal derivatives (MD), and the reduction to invariant manifold. Theoretical analysis shows that the first two methods can give reliable results only if a slow/fast assumption between slave and master coordinates holds. On the other hand, reduction to invariant manifolds allows proposing a simulation-free reduction method that can be applied without restricting assumptions on the frequencies of the slave modes. Numerical comparisons and numerous applications to continuous structures discretized with the FE procedure, are given subsequently. For application of the invariant manifold-based method, the computation is based on a direct application of the normal form to the physical space and hence to the nodes of the FE mesh, a method recently developed. The examples show the advantages and drawbacks of each reduction method when deriving ROM, and the results of the theoretical comparison are validated. Finally, the analysis of the dynamics of a system with 1:2 internal resonance and cubic nonlinearity is given in the last part of the thesis. The real normal form of the problem is first derived. Then the solution branches of the problem are investigated and compared to simpler solutions with the dynamics truncated at order two. The divergent behaviour of the hardening/softening characteristics for single mode reduction is investigated with this more complete model. (author)