By Geraint Jones
The Engineering Nonlinearity 3rd Annual Review Meeting took place in Bristol on 8, 9 and 10 June 2015. Engineers’ House played host to over 50 attendees from the project’s academic and industrial partners, and Andreas Kontogeorgos of the EPSRC.
The first day was opened by Principal Investigator, Prof. David Wagg, who handed over to Prof. Alan Champneys of the University of Bristol, to give the local hosts’ introduction. Prof. Champneys gave some updates on recent developments at the University of Bristol, including a new Vice-Chancellor Prof. Hugh Brady who was soon to be in post, and the exciting New Wing Extension to the Faculty of Engineering’s Queen’s building. Prof. Champneys then handed back to Prof Wagg, who further welcomed everyone to the meeting, and introduced the Keynote Speaker, Sanjiv Sharma of Airbus, who spoke on the importance of nonlinearity to Airbus.
Prof. Alan Champneys gives the hosts’ introduction for the 3rd ENL Annual Review in Bristol
The day then continued with an overview of project progress over the last year from Prof. Wagg, and continued with presentations from each of the project’s academic partners on the significant developments made across the five thematic areas. These were: System Identification by Prof Keith Worden and Dr Nikos Dervilis of Sheffield University; Random Vibration by Prof Robin Langley and Dr Graham Spelman of Cambridge University; Nonlinear Modal Analysis and Testing by Profs Jonathan Cooper and Simon Neild and Dr Julian Londono of Bristol University; Bifurcation Analysis by Prof. Champneys and Dr Thibaut Putelat of Bristol University and Prof Mike Friswell of Swansea University; and Active Control by Prof Steve Elliott and Dr Maryam Ghandchi-Tehrani of Southampton University.
Sanjiv Sharma delivers the Keynote lecture
After a full day of presentations, attendees took time out to continue their debates and discussions at the Pizza Express restaurant, in Clifton Village.
The second day began with a second keynote lecture, this time from Prof. Gabor Stepan of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, on “Identification of nonlinearities based on bistability measurements”.
The presentations then continued with Dr Tore Butlin, University of Cambridge on ”Vibration response bounds for systems with a local nonlinearity”, and Dr David Barton on “Control based continuation”.
Then it was the turn of PhD students and research assistants to take centre stage with Elevator pitches and Posters, all of which were very well received.
The afternoon session started with Dr Andreas Kontogeorgos, from the EPSRC, who spoke to the “EPSRC Delivery Plan”, and continued with presentations from Dr Alex Shaw of Swansea University on “Experimental responses of a structure with internal resonance”, and Dr Ben Weeks of the University of Bristol on “Modal testing for model validation of structures with discrete nonlinearities”.
Dr Geraint Jones, ENL Project Manager continued with a presentation on “Mechanisms for developing exploitation and impact”, and Prof. Wagg closed the main meeting with the ENL “Project progress and plan overview”.
The Steering and Management committees then continued discussions into the evening at Goldbrick House, Clifton.
Day 3 saw the Steering and Management committees meet separately then together to discuss progress; and the responses form the reviewers to the mid-term report. It was agreed that the project was progressing very well, and was well placed to facilitate take-up by industry of methods, tools and algorithms developed thus far by the project in its remaining two years.