Experimental evidence of bifurcating nonlinear normal modes in piecewise linear systems

A system with piecewise linear restoring forces, typical of damaged beams with a breathing crack, exhibits bifurcations characterized by the onset of superabundant modes in internal resonance with a significantly different shape than that of modes on a fundamental branch. A 2-DOF frame with piecewise linear stiffness is analyzed by means of an experimental investigation; the frame is forced by an harmonic base excitation and the operative modal shapes as well as the response amplitude are directly measured; the results are compared with numerical outcomes for different damping values. This study shows that the shapes and the frequencies of certain nonlinear normal modes (NNMs) of the related autonomous system strongly affect the forced response, in both the numerical and the experimental environments. Therefore, it is possible to match the NNM with the forced response of the system, leading to the prospect of identifying the severity and position of the damage from experimental tests.