Performance, robustness and sensitivity analysis of the nonlinear tuned vibration absorber

•We define regions of safe operation where absorber performance is guaranteed .•The methodology builds on continuation, bifurcation tracking and global analysis .•Nonlinear phenomena such as detached and quasiperiodic solutions are investigated.•We assess the sensitivity of absorber performance to variations of its parameters.

The nonlinear tuned vibration absorber (NLTVA) is a recently developed nonlinear absorber which generalizes Den Hartog׳s equal peak method to nonlinear systems. If the purposeful introduction of nonlinearity can enhance system performance, it can also give rise to adverse dynamical phenomena, including detached resonance curves and quasiperiodic regimes of motion. Through the combination of numerical continuation of periodic solutions, bifurcation detection and tracking, and global analysis, the present study identifies boundaries in the NLTVA parameter space delimiting safe, unsafe and unacceptable operations. The sensitivity of these boundaries to uncertainty in the NLTVA parameters is also investigated.