Nonlinear Vibration in Vehicular Structures

It is an increasingly common practice to employ numerical simulations to quantify the noise and vibration performance of complex mechanical structures, such as road vehicles, aircraft and ships. However, nonlinearities inherent in the different components of a structure are often excluded from the mathematical models used to predict noise and vibration response. Hitherto, structural models of these complex structures were often overly simplified, partly to allow for acceptable simulation times but also as a systematic means for manipulating and optimising features of nonlinear resonant response in mechanical structures is still lacking. The ability to model the nonlinear resonant response of a vehicle will lead to a paradigm shift in the current practice of using full-scale prototype to assess noise and vibration performance, leading to a significant reduction in development cost of next generation vehicles.The research will explore innovative methods (through a combination of nonlinear dynamics, computational mechanics and optimisation) to incorporate the effects of nonlinearity in noise and vibration response of vehicular structures, at an acceptable computational cost.