Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2012
In the present study, we propose a simplified nonlinear fluid model to characterize the complex nonlinear response of some viscoelastic materials. Recently, the viscoelastic modeling has been utilized by many researchers to simulate some parts of human body in bioengineering and to represent many material properties in mechanical engineering, electronic engineering and construction engineering. Occasionally it is almost impossible to evaluate the constant parameters in the model in the deterministic sense, therefore, the damping coefficient of the dashpot and the spring constants of the linear and nonlinear springs are considered as stochastic to model the stochastic properties of the viscoelastic materials. After some transformations, the closed-form solution can be obtained for the mean value of the displacement of the simplified nonlinear fluid model, subjected to constant rate of displacement. Based on the closed-form solution, the proposed method generates the stochastic dynamic response of the simplified nonlinear model, which plays an important role in performing the reliability analysis of the nonlinear system.