Abstract The response probability density function (PDF) of a single-degree-of-freedom linear system under non-Gaussian random excitation with a non-zero dominant frequency is investigated. The non-Gaussian excitation is a zero-mean stationary stochastic process prescribed by a first-order PDF and a power spectral density (PSD) with bandwidth and dominant frequency parameters. Uniform and Laplace distributions are considered for the excitation PDF. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to obtain the stationary displacement and velocity PDFs of the system. The simulation results indicate that the effects of excitation non-Gaussianity on the response PDFs vary greatly, depending on the bandwidth and dominant frequency of the excitation PSD. Particularly, the excitation non-Gaussianity appears strongly in the response PDFs when the excitation has a narrow bandwidth and the excitation dominant frequency matches the natural frequency of the system. Next, it is shown that when the excitation and response waveforms are similar, the response PDFs take a shape similar to the excitation PDF; on the other hand, when the waveforms are different, the response PDFs are nearly Gaussian, irrespective of the shape of the excitation PDF. Furthermore, as a quantitative index of waveform similarity, the maximum absolute value of the normalized cross-correlation function of excitation and response is introduced. The correspondence between the index value and the non-Gaussianity of the response PDF is revealed.
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