Nonlinear Energy Transfer of a Spar-Floater System Using the Inerter Pendulum Vibration Absorber

The inerter pendulum vibration absorber (IPVA) is integrated between a spar and an annulus floater using a ball-screw mechanism to study its wave energy conversion potential. Hydrodynamic stiffness, added mass, and radiation damping effects on the spar-floater system are characterized using the boundary element method. It is found that a 1:2 internal resonance via a period-doubling bifurcation in the system is responsible for nonlinear energy transfer between the spar-floater system and the pendulum vibration absorber. This nonlinear energy transfer occurs when the primary harmonic solution of the system becomes unstable due to the 1:2 internal resonance phenomenon. The focus of this paper is to analyze this 1:2 internal resonance phenomenon near the first natural frequency of the system. The IPVA system when integrated with the spar-floater system is shown to outperform a linear coupling between the spar and the floater both in terms of the response amplitude operator (RAO) of the spar and one measure of the energy conversion potential of the system. Finally, experiments are performed on the IPVA system integrated with single-degree-of-freedom system (without any hydrodynamic effects) to observe the 1:2 internal resonance phenomenon and the nonlinear energy transfer between the primary mass and the pendulum vibration absorber. It is shown experimentally that the IPVA system outperforms a linear benchmark in terms of vibration suppression due to the energy transfer phenomenon.