Design criteria for optimally tuned nonlinear energy sinks-part 1: transient regime

The context of present work is related to the study of strongly nonlinear absorbers (NESs) aimed to attenuate vibrations induced in a single degree-of-freedom oscillator and working under the principle of targeted energy transfer (TET). The purpose motivated by practical considerations is here to establish a design criterion permitting to first ensure whether NES absorber is active or not and second to provide a nonlinear stiffness lower bound for optimal energy absorption during pumping phases. An asymptotic expansion of dynamic equations of motion under transient regime enables to emphasize a new definition of activation energy and to investigate the influence of damping upon the efficiency of one-way channeled energy transfer. Methodology is straightforwardly extended to the case of multiple NES attached in parallel to the primary oscillator. Numerical benchmark simulations corroborate the reliability and robustness of proposed design procedure.