Realistic joints in a spacecraft structure have clearances at the interfacing parts. Many such systems can be considered to be having bilinear stiffness. A typical example is the propellant tank assembled with the structure of a spacecraft. However, it is seen that the responses of such systems subjected to base excitation are rarely reported. In this work, mathematical expressions for theoretically estimating the amplitude of its response, the frequency at which the response is the maximum and the maximum response when it is subjected to base sine excitation are derived. Several experiments are conducted on a typical such system subjecting it to different levels of base sine excitation. The frequency at which the response is the maximum reduces with the magnitude of excitation. The expressions derived in this work can be used in estimating the amplitudes of responses and their characteristics reasonably well.

航天器结构中的真实关节在接口部分具有空隙。许多这样的系统可以被认为具有双线性刚度。一个典型的例子是装有航天器结构的推进剂箱。但是，可以看到很少报道这种系统受到碱激发的响应。在这项工作中，推导了数学表达式，用于从理论上估计其响应的幅度，响应为最大的频率以及在受到正弦激励时的最大响应。在典型的此类系统上进行了几次实验，使它受到不同级别的正弦激励。响应最大的频率随激励幅度而降低。