Summary
This work presents a novel approach that overcomes the sequential nature of numerical path continuation. The idea is to first define an appropriately simplified low-fidelity model and predict its relevant dynamics with low computational effort, e.g. analytically. Next, the set of relevant solution points on the target (high-fidelity) curve is computed using the low-fidelity solutions as departure. The proposed generic concept is exemplified for a selection of nonlinear vibration problems. Different types of system models, nonlinearities and analyses are considered, and the Harmonic Balance method is used in all cases to compute periodic limit states. In particular, it is shown that the proposed concept is applicable to modal and harmonic order refinement. Finally, it is shown that the concept is also interesting for system parameter sensitivity analyses and it permits to robustly reach parameter ranges that are extremely difficult to obtain with conventional path continuation.
