Multiple harmonic balance method for aperiodic vibration of a piecewise-linear system

A multiple harmonic balance method is presented in this paper for obtaining the aperiodic steady-state solution of a piecewise-linear system. As the method utilizes general and systematic computational procedures, it can be applied to analyze the multi-tone or combination-tone responses for the higher dimensional nonlinear systems such as rotors. Moreover, it is capable of informing the stability of the obtained solution using Floquet theory. To demonstrate the systematic approach of the new method, the almost periodic forced vibration of an articulated loading platform (ALP) with a piecewise-linear stiffness is computed as an example.