Incremental harmonic balance method for predicting amplitudes of a multi-d.o.f. non-linear wheel shimmy system with combined Coulomb and quadratic damping

Incremental harmonic balance (IHB) formulations are derived for general multiple degrees of freedom (d.o.f.) non-linear autonomous systems. These formulations are developed for a concerned four-d.o.f. aircraft wheel shimmy system with combined Coulomb and velocity-squared damping. A multi-harmonic analysis is performed and amplitudes of limit cycles are predicted. Within a large range of parametric variations with respect to aircraft taxi velocity, the IHB method can, at a much cheaper cost, give results with high accuracy as compared with numerical results given by a parametric continuation method. In particular, the IHB method avoids the stiff problems emanating from numerical treatment of aircraft wheel shimmy system equations. The development is applicable to other vibration control systems that include commonly used dry friction devices or velocity-squared hydraulic dampers.