Semianalytical sensitivity of Floquet characteristic exponents with application to rotary-wing aeroelasticity

An analysis of a novel semianalytical method indicates that linear and nonlinear contributions are responsible for the sensitivity of the characteristic exponents of a linearized system to variations in the system parameters. Semianalytical derivatives, instead of finite difference approximations, are used to detect the linear and nonlinear contributions. Calculation of the linear contribution is possible at a low cost, but the the cost of the characteristics over which nonlinear contribution are linearized is significant.