Empirical decomposition method for modeless component and its application to VIV analysis

Aiming at accurately distinguishing modeless component and natural vibration mode terms from data series of nonlinear and non-stationary processes, such as Vortex-Induced Vibration (VIV), a new empirical mode decomposition method has been developed in this paper. The key innovation related to this technique concerns the method to decompose modeless component from non-stationary process, characterized by a predetermined ‘maximum intrinsic time window’ and cubic spline. The introduction of conceptual modeless component eliminates the requirement of using spurious harmonics to represent nonlinear and non-stationary signals and then makes subsequent modal identification more accurate and meaningful. It neither slacks the vibration power of natural modes nor aggrandizes spurious energy of modeless component. The scale of the maximum intrinsic time window has been well designed, avoiding energy aliasing in data processing. Finally, it has been applied to analyze data series of vortex-induced vibration processes. Taking advantage of this newly introduced empirical decomposition method and mode identification technique, the vibration analysis about vortex-induced vibration becomes more meaningful.