BIFURCATION ANALYSIS OF A SPACECRAFT STRUCTURE USING THE HARMONIC BALANCE METHOD

The harmonic balance (HB) method has been widely used in the past few years, as a numerical tool for the study of non-linear models. However, in its classical formulation the HB method is limited to the approximation of periodic solutions. The present paper proposes to extend the method to the detection and tracking of bifurcations in the codimension-2 system parameters space. To validate the methodology, the forced response of a real spacecraft is examined. The paper first provides some numerical evidence of the presence of quasiperiodic oscillations and isolated solutions. It then demonstrates how the tracking of Neimark-Sacker and fold bifurcations can help get a deeper understanding of these attractors.