Theoretical and experimental study of a stable state adjustable nonlinear energy sink

Due to high sensitivity to the changes in external excitation intensity, the implementation of nonlinear energy sinks (NESs) have been greatly limited in practical applications. This study presents a stable state adjustable NES (SA-NES) structure. By adjusting the structural geometric relationship, the SA-NES structure can easily switch its stable state among monostable, bistable, and tristable. The governing equation of the coupled system is obtained by Hamilton's principle. The approximate analytical solution is obtained by the harmonic balance method, and the slow invariant manifold is obtained complexification-averaging method, which are validated through numerical analysis. Through theoretical analysis and experimental validation, the dynamic response of the SA-NES and vibration reduction performance are studied under different levels of excitations. The obtained results show that the designed SA-NES can effectively suppress the vibration under different level excitation intensities. It is also shown that the SA-NES structure can be adjusted to the monostable state, and the vibration of the linear oscillator can be effectively suppressed by the strong modulation response under a certain excitation intensity. When the excitation intensity is weak or strong, the SA-NES can be adjusted to the bistable state and the tristable state, respectively, thus effectively suppressing the vibration through chaotic inter-well oscillation. This study reveals the vibration suppression mechanism of the SA-NES, and introduces a new NES configuration to suppress different levels of engineering excitations.