This Thesis comprises of two parts containing similar studies of Nonlinear Localization induced Base Isolation of structural systems. The present method of base isolation,like other nonlinear vibration isolation methods, enjoys certain merits like capability of absorbing broad band vibrations, attenuating heavy shocks etc. The research in this thesis is an extension of this base isolation strategy first proposed by Vakakis and co-author. The strategy involves augmenting an appendage referred to as the secondary system with the main structural unit or the primary system, which we want to isolate from disturbances at the base. The primary system is coupled to the secondary system through a stiffness element. Both the primary and secondary systems have nonlinear dynamic behavior. It is seen that for certain choice of values of the coupling element, steady state vibration of very small magnitude is induced in the primary system. This result was established by considering a general discrete nonlinear system with viscous damping. Now it is a well known fact that viscous damping, though being widely used in literature as well as in practice doesn't turn out to be accurate enough to capture structural damping behaviors. Moreover, the actual damping mechanism if governed by some nonlinear function of the system variables, may influence the physics governing the nonlinear localization phenomenon in a manner rendering the present method not suitable for structural systems at the very outset. So in the present study we focus our attention in establishing the robustness and hence utility of the method by considering technically more defensible models of structural damping. These models efficiently capture certain complex phenomena which structures are known to exhibit. The occurrence of localization induced vibration isolation in structural systems in the presence of these damping models is taken as a proof of the efficacy of the method and its applicability to a wide range of situations. The present study establishes existence of localization through relevant analytical and numerical exercises. In the first part of the thesis we take up the study of nonlinear localization induced base isolation of a three degrees of freedom system having cubic nonlinearities under sinusoidal base excitation. The damping forces in the system are hysteretic in nature. In the present setting this is captured by Bouc-Wen model of hysteresis. Bouc-Wen model is one of the most widely used phenomenological model of hysteresis to have a ready-to-use mathematical description of hysteretic patterns appearing in structural engineering systems. The nature of responses of the different degrees of freedom as excitation frequency varies is a better way of analyzing the performance of the vibration isolation system. We adopt this line of approach for the present study. Normally Harmonic Balance Method (HBM) serves this purpose very well but in the present case as the hysteretic variable is not explicitly related to the system variables, HBM cannot be straightway implemented. Moreover, the hysteretic variable is related to other state variables through a relation which contains non-smooth terms. As a result, Incremental Harmonic Balance (IHB) method is used to obtain amplitude frequency relationship of the system response. The stability analysis of the solution branches is done by using Floquet Theory. Direct numerical simulation is then made use of to support our results that are obtained from this approximate numeric-analytic estimate of the amplitudefrequency relationships of the system, which helps us to analyze the efficacy of this method of base isolation for a broad class of systems. In the next part we consider a similar system where the damping forces in the system are described by functions of fractional derivative of the instantaneous displacements. Fractional Derivative based damping model has been found to be very effective in describing structural damping. We adopt half-order fractional derivative for our study, which can capture damping behavior of polymeric material very well. Typically linear and quadratic damping is considered separately as these are the two most relevant representations of structural damping. Under the assumption of smallness of certain system parameters and nonlinear terms an approximate estimate of the response at each degree of freedom of the system is obtained using Method of Multiple Scales. We then consider a situation where the nonlinear terms and certain other system parameters are no longer small. For the case where asymptotic methods are no longer valid, the assessment of performance of the vibration isolation system is made from amplitude-frequency relations. As a result, we take recourse to the Harmonic Balance Method in conjunction with arc length based continuation technique for obtaining the frequency amplitude plot for linear damping and Incremental Harmonic Balance method for quadratic damping, each of which is validated against results obtained from direct numerical simulation of the system. It needs to be appreciated that base isolation obtained this way has no counterpart in the linear theory.

Considerando-se as exigências impostas por projetos arquitetônicos cada vez mais arrojados as passarelas de pedestres têm sido comumente projetadas cada vez mais leves e com grandes vão livres. Este procedimento tem gerado sistemas estruturais bastante esbeltos e os estados limites últimos e de utilização que norteiam o dimensionamento tem sido modificados. Uma outra conseqüência desta tendência de projeto diz respeito a um aumento considerável dos problemas referentes à vibração. No caso particular de passarelas, este fenômeno ocorre quando a freqüência fundamental da estrutura é igual ou se aproxima da freqüência do passo do pedestre. Atividades como caminhar, correr ou pular produzem excitações dinâmicas. Essas forças dinâmicas, em determinados casos, podem vir a produzir níveis de vibração elevados e, por conseguinte, perturbar ou até mesmo alarmar as pessoas que estiverem utilizando a estrutura. Como o propósito primário das passarelas é o transporte de pedestres, as mesmas precisam estar seguras e apresentar um comportamento que não ofereça desconforto aos usuários. Tendo em mente todos esses aspectos, o desenvolvimento desta dissertação tem como objetivos o estudo da influência da modelagem do carregamento dinâmico, proveniente dos pedestres, impacto do calcanhar humano e, bem como, do amortecimento estrutural sobre a resposta dinâmica de passarelas mistas (aço-concreto). Para tal, um modelo mais realista que incorpora as ações dinâmicas induzidas pelos pedestres, de modo a considerar o impacto transiente do calcanhar dos mesmos será objeto de estudo na presente investigação. Neste modelo de carregamento, o movimento de pernas que causa a subida e descida da massa efetiva do corpo em cada passo foi considerado e a posição do carregamento dinâmico foi alterada de acordo com a posição do individuo, assim a função de tempo, correspondente a excitação induzida pela caminhada, teve uma variação espacial e temporal.O modelo estrutural utilizado baseia-se no projeto de diversas passarelas mistas (aço-concreto). A resposta dinâmica das passarelas, em termos das acelerações verticais de pico e rms (root mean square), é obtida e comparada com os valores limites propostos por normas de projeto, objetivando a verificação do conforto humano. Com base nos resultados alcançados nesta dissertação foi possível demonstrar a importância dos parâmetros investigados (modelagem da carga dinâmica, efeito do calcanhar humano e amortecimento estrutural) e como estes influenciam substancialmente na avaliação da resposta dinâmica das passarelas. Os resultados obtidos ao longo do estudo indicam, claramente, que os projetistas estruturais devem ser alertados para distorções importantes que ocorrem quando os efeitos dinâmicos são desprezados na análise deste tipo de estrutura. Os valores máximos de acelerações encontrados violam os critérios de conforto humano quando comparados com aqueles previstos em diversas recomendações de projeto. Portanto, verifica-se que as passarelas de pedestres podem atingir níveis de vibração elevados os quais podem comprometer o conforto humano e a segurança dos usuários da obra.

Considerando-se as exigências impostas por projetos arquitetônicos cada vez mais arrojados as passarelas de pedestres têm sido comumente projetadas cada vez mais leves e com grandes vão livres. Este procedimento tem gerado sistemas estruturais bastante esbeltos e os estados limites últimos e de utilização que norteiam o dimensionamento tem sido modificados. Uma outra conseqüência desta tendência de projeto diz respeito a um aumento considerável dos problemas referentes à vibração. No caso particular de passarelas, este fenômeno ocorre quando a freqüência fundamental da estrutura é igual ou se aproxima da freqüência do passo do pedestre. Atividades como caminhar, correr ou pular produzem excitações dinâmicas. Essas forças dinâmicas, em determinados casos, podem vir a produzir níveis de vibração elevados e, por conseguinte, perturbar ou até mesmo alarmar as pessoas que estiverem utilizando a estrutura. Como o propósito primário das passarelas é o transporte de pedestres, as mesmas precisam estar seguras e apresentar um comportamento que não ofereça desconforto aos usuários. Tendo em mente todos esses aspectos, o desenvolvimento desta dissertação tem como objetivos o estudo da influência da modelagem do carregamento dinâmico, proveniente dos pedestres, impacto do calcanhar humano e, bem como, do amortecimento estrutural sobre a resposta dinâmica de passarelas mistas (aço-concreto). Para tal, um modelo mais realista que incorpora as ações dinâmicas induzidas pelos pedestres, de modo a considerar o impacto transiente do calcanhar dos mesmos será objeto de estudo na presente investigação. Neste modelo de carregamento, o movimento de pernas que causa a subida e descida da massa efetiva do corpo em cada passo foi considerado e a posição do carregamento dinâmico foi alterada de acordo com a posição do individuo, assim a função de tempo, correspondente a excitação induzida pela caminhada, teve uma variação espacial e temporal.O modelo estrutural utilizado baseia-se no projeto de diversas passarelas mistas (aço-concreto). A resposta dinâmica das passarelas, em termos das acelerações verticais de pico e rms (root mean square), é obtida e comparada com os valores limites propostos por normas de projeto, objetivando a verificação do conforto humano. Com base nos resultados alcançados nesta dissertação foi possível demonstrar a importância dos parâmetros investigados (modelagem da carga dinâmica, efeito do calcanhar humano e amortecimento estrutural) e como estes influenciam substancialmente na avaliação da resposta dinâmica das passarelas. Os resultados obtidos ao longo do estudo indicam, claramente, que os projetistas estruturais devem ser alertados para distorções importantes que ocorrem quando os efeitos dinâmicos são desprezados na análise deste tipo de estrutura. Os valores máximos de acelerações encontrados violam os critérios de conforto humano quando comparados com aqueles previstos em diversas recomendações de projeto. Portanto, verifica-se que as passarelas de pedestres podem atingir níveis de vibração elevados os quais podem comprometer o conforto humano e a segurança dos usuários da obra.

The subject of the thesis is the investigation of asymptotic properties of solutions of the Cauchy problem for structurally damped sigma-evolution operators with time dependent, monotonous, dissipation term. An appropriate energy for solutions of the sigma-evolution equations is defined and some estimates for energies of higher order are proved. In the scale invariant case the optimality of these estimates is shown. Further, the influence of properties of the time dependent dissipation on L^p-L^q estimates for the energy with p and q bigger or equal to 2 and from the conjugate line is clarified. Also smoothing properties of the operators under consideration are investigated. The connection between the regularity of the data and the regularity of the solution in terms of L^2 based Gevrey spaces is considered. Finally, L^1-L^1-estimates in the special case delta = sigma/2 and decreasing dissipative coefficient. / Thema der vorliegenden Dissertation ist die Untersuchung asymptotischer Eigenschaften von Lösungen des Cauchy Problems für strukturell gedämpfte sigma-Evolutions-Operatoren mit zeitabhängigem, monotonen Dissipationskoeffizienten. Es wird eine geeignete Energie definiert und für diese Abschätzungen, auf für entsprechende Energien höherer Ordnung gezeigt. Darüber hinaus wird der Einfluss des Dissipationskoeffizienten auf L^p-L^q Abschätzungen auf und entfernt von der konjugierten Linie untersucht. Im skaleninvarianten Fall wird die Schärfe der Abschätzungen bewiesen. Weiterhin wird der Zusammenhang zwischen der Regularität der Daten und der der Lösung in Termen von L^2-basierten Gevrey-Räumen untersucht. Schließlich werden L^1-L^1-Abschätzungen für den Spezialfall delta = sigma/2 und monoton fallenden Dissipationskoeffizienten gezeigt.

The particular study case in this thesis is the shock test performed on the LISA Pathfinder satellite conducted in a laboratory environment on a dedicated test bed: Vega Shock Test Apparatus (VESTA). This test is considered fully representative to study shock levels produced by fairing jettisoning event at Vega Launcher Vehicle, which induces high shock loads towards the satellite. In the frame of this thesis, some transient response analyses have been conducted in MSC Nastran, and a shock simulation tool for the VESTA test configuration has been developed. The simulation tool is based on Nastran Direct Transient Response Analysis solver (SOL 109), and is representative of the upper composite of Vega with the LISA Pathfinder coupled to it. Post-processing routines of transient response signals were conducted in Dynaworks which served to calculate Shock Response Spectra (SRS). The simulation tool is a model of forcing function parameters for transient analysis which adequately correlates with the shock real test data, in order to understand how the effect of shock generated by the launcher is seen in the satellite and its sub-systems. Since available computation resources are limited the parameters for analysis were optimised for computation time, file size, memory capacity,  and model complexity. The forcing function represents a release of the HSS clamp band which is responsible for fairing jettisoning, thus the parameters which were studied are mostly concerning the modelling of this event. Among many investigated, those which visibly improved SRS correlation are radial forcing function shape, implementation of axial impulse, clamp band loading geometry and refined loading scheme. Integration time step duration and analysis duration were also studied and found to improve correlation.  From each analysis, the qualifying shock environment was then derived by linear scaling in proportion of the applied preload, and considering a qualification margin of 3dB. Consecutive tracking of structural responses along shock propagation path exposed gradual changes in responses pattern and revealed an important property that a breathing mode (n = 0) at the base of a conical Adapter translates into an axial input to the spacecraft. The parametrisation itself was based on responses registered at interfaces located in near-field (where the clamp band is located and forcing function is applied) and medium-field with respect to the shock event location. Following shock propagation path, the final step was the analysis of shock responses inside the satellite located in a far-field region, which still revealed a very good correlation of results. Thus, it can be said that parametrisation process was adequate, and the developed shock simulation tool can be qualified. However, due to the nature of shock, the tool cannot fully replace VESTA laboratory test, but can support shock assessment process and preparation to such test. In the last part of the thesis, the implementation of some finite element model improvements is investigated. Majority of the panels in spacecraft interior exhibited shock over-prediction due to finite element model limitation. Equipment units modelled as lump masses rigidly attached with RBE2 elements to the panel surface are a source of such local over-predictions. Thus, some of the units were remodelled and transient responses were reinvestigated. It was found that remodelling with either solid elements, or lump mass connected to RBE3 element and reinforced by RBE2 element, can significantly improve local transient responses. This conclusion is in line with conclusions found in ECSS Shock Handbook.