prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: How many brother does Njoroge have?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 1: Weep Not, Child is a 1964 novel by Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o  It was his first novel, published in 1964 under the name James Ngugi  It was among the African Writers Series  It was the first English language|English novel to be published by an East African  Thiong'o's works deal with the relationship between Africans and white settlers in colonial Kenya, and are heavily critical of colonial rule  Specifically, Weep Not, Child deals with the Mau Mau Uprising, and "the bewildering dispossession of an entire people from their ancestral land " Ngũgĩ wrote the novel while he was a student at Makerere University 

The book is divided into two parts and eighteen chapters  Part one deals mostly with the education of Njoroge, while part two deals with the rising Mau Mau movement 

Plot summary

Njoroge, a little boy, is urged to attend school by his mother  He is the first one of his family able to go to school  His family lives on the land of Jacobo, an African made rich by his dealings with white settlers, namely Mr  Howlands, the most powerful land owner in the area  Njoroge's brother Kamau works as an apprentice to a carpenter, while Boro, the eldest living son, is troubled by his experiences while in forced service during World War II, including witnessing the death of his elder brother  Ngotho, Njoroge's father and a respected man in the surrounding area, tends Mr  Howlands' crops, but is motivated by his passion to preserve his ancestral land, rather than for any compensation or loyalty 

One day, black workers call for a strike to obtain higher wages  Ngotho is ambivalent about participating in the strike because he fears he will lose his job  However, he decides to go to the gathering, even though his two wives do not agree  At the demonstration, there are calls for higher wages  Suddenly, the white police inspector brings Jacobo to the gathering to pacify the native people  Jacobo tries to put an end to the strike  Ngotho attacks Jacobo, and the result is a riot where two people are killed  Jacobo survives and swears revenge  Ngotho loses his job and Njoroge’s family is forced to move  Njoroge’s brothers fund his education and seem to lose respect for their father 

Mwihaki, Jacobo's daughter and Njoroge's best friend, enters a girls' only boarding school, leaving Njoroge relatively alone  He reflects upon her leaving, and realizes that he was embarrassed by his father's actions towards Jacobo  For this reason, Njoroge is not upset by her exit and their separation  Njoroge switches to another school 

For a time, everyone's attention is focused on the upcoming trial of Jomo Kenyatta – a revered leader of the movement  Many blacks think that he is going to bring forth Kenya’s independence  But Jomo loses the trial and is imprisoned  This results in further protests and greater suppression of the black population 

Jacobo and a white landowner, Mr  Howlands, fight against the rising activities of the Mau Mau, an organization striving for Kenyan economic, political, and cultural independence  Jacobo accuses Ngotho of being the leader of the Mau Mau and tries to imprison the whole family  Meanwhile, the situation in the country is deteriorating  Six black men are taken out of their houses and executed in the woods 

One day Njoroge meets Mwihaki again, who has returned from boarding school  Although Njoroge had planned to avoid her due to the conflict between their fathers, their friendship is unaffected  Njoroge passes an important exam that allows him to advance to High School  His village is proud of him, and collects money to pay Njoroge's High School tuition 

Several months later, Jacobo is murdered in his office by a member of the Mau Mau  Mr  Howlands has Njoroge removed from school for questioning  Both father and son are brutally beaten before release and Ngotho is left barely alive  Although there doesn't seem to be a connection between Njoroge's family and the murder, it is eventually revealed that Njoroge's brothers are behind the assassination, and that Boro is the real leader of the Mau Mau  Ngotho soon dies from his injuries and Njoroge finds out that his father was protecting his brothers  Kamau has been imprisoned for life  Only Njoroge and his two mothers remain free, and Njoroge is left as the sole provider of his two mothers  Njoroge fears that he cannot make ends meet; he gives up hope of continuing in school and loses faith in God 

Njoroge asks Mwihaki's for support, but she is angry because of her father’s death  When he finally pledges his love to her, she refuses to leave with him, realizing her obligation to Kenya and her mother  Njoroge decides to leave town and makes an attempt at suicide; however, he fails when his mothers find him before he is able to hang himself  The novel closes with Njoroge feeling hopeless, and ashamed of cowardice 

Characters in Weep Not, Child
 Njoroge: the main character of the book whose main goal throughout the book is to become as educated as possible 
 Ngotho: Njoroge's father  He works for Mr Howlands and is respected by him until he attacks Jacobo at a workers strike  He is fired and the family is forced to move to another section of the country  Over the course of the book his position as the central power of the family weakened, to the point where his self-realization that he has spent his whole life waiting for the prophecy (that proclaims the blacks will be returned their land) to come true rather than fighting for Kenyan independence, leads to his depression 
 Nyokabi and Njeri: the two wives of Ngotho  Njeri is Ngotho's first wife, and mother of Boro, Kamau, and Kori  Nyokabi is his second wife, and the mother of Njoroge and Mwangi 
 Njoroge has four brothers: Boro, Kamau, Kori and Mwangi (who is Njoroge's only full brother, who died in World War II) 
 Boro: Son of Njeri who fights for the Allies in World War II  Upon returning his anger against the colonial government is compounded by their confiscation of the his land  Boro's anger and position as eldest son leads him to question and ridicule Ngotho, which eventually defeats their father's will (upon realizing his life was wasted waiting and not acting)  It is eventually revealed that Boro is the leader of the Mau Mau (earlier alluded to as "entering politics") and murders Mr Howlands  He is caught by police immediately after and is scheduled to be executed by the book's end  It is highly likely that it is also Boro who kills Jacobo 
 Mwihaki: Njoroge's best friend (and later develops into his love interest)  Daughter of Jacobo  When it is revealed that his family killed Jacobo (most likely Boro), Mwihaki distances herself from Njoroge, asking for time to mourn her father and care for her mother 
 Jacobo: Mwihaki's father and an important landowner  Chief of the village 
 Mr  Howlands: A white settler who emigrated to colonial Kenya and now owns a farm made up of land that originally belonged to Ngotho's ancestors  Has three children: Peter who died in World War II before the book's beginning, a daughter who becomes a missionary, and Stephen who met Njoroge while the two were in high school 

Themes and motifs
Weep Not, Child integrates Gikuyu mythology and the ideology of nationalism that serves as catalyst for much of the novel's action  The novel explores the negative aspects of colonial rule over Kenya  Njoroge's aspiration to attend university is frustrated by both the violence of the Mau Mau rebels and the violent response of the colonial government  This disappointment leads to his alienation from his family and ultimately his suicide attempt 

The novel also ponders the role of saviours and salvation  The author notes in his The River Between: "Salvation shall come from the hills  From the blood that flows in me, I say from the same tree, a son shall rise  And his duty shall be to lead and save the people " Jomo Kenyatta, the first prime minister of Kenya, is immortalised in Weep Not, Child  The author says, "Jomo had been his (Ngotho's) hope  Ngotho had come to think that it was Jomo who would drive away the white man  To him, Jomo stood for custom and traditions purified by grace of learning and much travel " Njoroge comes to view Jomo as a messiah who will win the struggle against the colonial government 
Context 2: Sir Simon William English  (born 30 December 1961) is a New Zealand former National Party politician who served as the 39th prime minister of New Zealand from 2016 to 2017  He had previously served as the 17th deputy prime minister of New Zealand and minister of finance from 2008 to 2016 under John Key and the Fifth National Government 

A farmer and public servant before entering politics, English was elected to the New Zealand Parliament in  as the National Party's candidate in the Wallace electorate  He was elevated to Cabinet in 1996 and in 1999 was made minister of finance, although he served for less than a year due to his party's loss at the 1999 general election  In October 2001, English replaced Jenny Shipley as the leader of the National Party (and consequently as Leader of the Opposition)  He led the party to its worst defeat at the 2002 general election, and as a consequence, in October 2003 he was replaced as leader by Don Brash 

In November 2006, after Brash's resignation, English became deputy leader under John Key  After National's victory at the 2008 general election, he became deputy prime minister and was also made minister of finance for the second time  Under English's direction New Zealand's economy maintained steady growth during National's three terms of government  He became a list-only MP after stepping down as an electorate MP at the 2014 general election 

John Key resigned as leader of the National Party and prime minister in December 2016  English won the resulting leadership election unopposed and was sworn in as prime minister on 12 December 2016  His tenure was only ten months, and included a three-month election campaign  In the 2017 general election, National won the largest number of seats but fell short of a majority  The parties holding the balance of power declined to support the existing government, and English was subsequently replaced as prime minister by Jacinda Ardern, leader of the Labour Party  English initially continued on as Leader of the Opposition, but resigned as leader of the National Party on 27 February 2018 and left parliament two weeks later 

Early life
English was born on 30 December 1961 at Lumsden Maternity Centre in Lumsden  He is the eleventh of twelve children of Mervyn English and Norah (née O'Brien) English  His parents purchased Rosedale, a mixed sheep and cropping farm in Dipton, Southland from Mervyn's uncle, Vincent English, a bachelor, in 1944  English was born in the maternity unit at Lumsden 

English attended St Thomas's School in Winton, then boarded at St  Patrick's College in Upper Hutt, where he became head boy  He played in the first XV of the school's rugby team  English went on to study commerce at the University of Otago, where he was a resident at Selwyn College, and then completed an honours degree in English literature at Victoria University of Wellington 

After finishing his studies, English returned to Dipton and farmed for a few years  From 1987 to 1989, he worked in Wellington as a policy analyst for the New Zealand Treasury, at a time when the free market policies favoured by Labour's finance minister Roger Douglas (known collectively as "Rogernomics") were being implemented 

English joined the National Party in 1980, while at Victoria University  He served for a period as chairman of the Southland branch of the Young Nationals, and became a member of the Wallace electorate committee  After moving to Wellington, he served for periods on the Island Bay and Miramar electorate committees, respectively 

Fourth National Government (1990–1999)

At the 1990 general election, English stood as the National candidate in Wallace, replacing the retiring Derek Angus, and was elected with a large majority  He would hold this seat, renamed Clutha-Southland in 1996, until 2014  He and three other newly elected National MPs (Tony Ryall, Nick Smith, and Roger Sowry) were soon identified as rising stars in New Zealand politics, and at various points were dubbed the "brat pack", the "gang of four", and the "young Turks"  In his first term in parliament, English chaired a select committee into social services  He was made a parliamentary under-secretary in 1993, serving under the Minister of Health 

First period in cabinet (1996–1999)
In early 1996, English was elevated to cabinet by Prime Minister Jim Bolger, becoming the Minister for Crown Health Enterprises and Associate Minister of Education (to Wyatt Creech)  He was 34 at the time, becoming the cabinet's youngest member  After the 1996 general election, the National Party was forced into a coalition with New Zealand First to retain government  In the resulting cabinet reshuffle, English emerged as Minister of Health  However, as a condition of the coalition agreement, NZ First's Neil Kirton (a first-term MP) was made Associate Minister of Health, effectively becoming English's deputy  This arrangement was described in the press as a "shotgun marriage", and there were frequent differences of opinion between the two ministers  After their relationship became unworkable, Kirton was sacked from the role in August 1997, with the agreement of NZ First leader Winston Peters 

As Minister of Health, English was responsible for continuing the reforms to the public health system that National had begun after the 1990 general election  The reforms were unpopular, and health was perceived as one of the government's weaknesses, with the health portfolio consequently being viewed as a challenge  English believed that the unpopularity of the reforms was in part due to a failure in messaging, and encouraged his National colleagues to avoid bureaucratic and money-focused language (such as references to "balance sheets" and "user charges") and instead talk about the improvements to services the government's reforms would bring  He also rejected the idea that public hospitals could be run as commercial enterprises, a view which some of his colleagues had previously promoted 

By early 1997, as dissatisfaction with Bolger's leadership began to grow, English was being touted as a potential successor, along with Jenny Shipley and Doug Graham  His age (35) was viewed as the main impediment to a successful leadership run  National's leadership troubles were resolved in December 1997, when Bolger resigned and Shipley was elected to the leadership unopposed  English had been a supporter of Bolger as leader, but Shipley reappointed him Minister of Health in her new cabinet 

English was promoted to Minister of Finance in a reshuffle in January 1999, a position which was at the time subordinate to the Treasurer, Bill Birch  After a few months, the pair switched positions as part of Birch's transition to retirement, with English assuming the senior portfolio  In early interviews, he emphasised his wish to be seen as a pragmatist rather than an ideologue, and said that the initiatives of some of his predecessors (Roger Douglas's "Rogernomics" and Ruth Richardson's "Ruthanasia") had focused on "fruitless, theoretical debates" when "people just want to see problems solved" 

Opposition (1999–2008)

After the National Party lost the 1999 election to Helen Clark's Labour Party, English continued on in the shadow cabinet as National's spokesperson for finance  He was elected deputy leader of the party in February 2001, following the resignation of Wyatt Creech, with Gerry Brownlee being his unsuccessful opponent 

Leader of the Opposition
In October 2001, after months of speculation, Jenny Shipley resigned as leader of the National Party after being told she no longer had the support of the party caucus  English was elected as her replacement unopposed (with Roger Sowry as his deputy), and consequently became Leader of the Opposition  However, he did not openly organise against Shipley, and according to The Southland Times "there was almost an element of 'aw, shucks, I'll do it then' about Mr English's ascension" 

Aged 39 when he was elected, English became the second-youngest leader in the National Party's history, after Jim McLay (who was 38 when elected in 1984)  He also became only the third Southlander to lead a major New Zealand political party, after Joseph Ward and Adam Hamilton  However, English failed to improve the party's performance  In the 2002 election, National suffered its worst electoral defeat ever, gaining barely more than twenty percent of the vote  English described it as "the worst day of my political life"  Both party insiders and the general public were split as to how much to blame him for the loss, but most of the party believed that English would be able to rebuild National's support 

By late 2003, however, National's performance in opinion polls remained poor  The party had briefly increased its popularity in the year following the election, but by October its support had fallen to levels only slightly better than what it achieved in the last ballot  English also appeared in a boxing match for a charity against entertainer Ted Clarke  This did not boost his polling or that of the National party either, with suggestions that it devalued his image as a serious politician  Don Brash, former governor of the Reserve Bank and a relative newcomer to politics, began to build up support to replace English  On 28 October, Brash gained sufficient backing in Caucus to defeat English in a leadership contest 

Shadow cabinet roles and deputy leader
On 2 November 2003, when Brash changed responsibilities for certain MPs, English became National's spokesman for education, ranked at fifth place in the party's parliamentary hierarchy  He remained in parliament after the 2005 election  In his new shadow education portfolio, English performed strongly, and remained a party favourite despite his election defeat as leader in 2002, eventually being returned to the finance portfolio in August 2004 as deputy spokesman (while still retaining responsibility for education) 

In November 2006, Brash resigned as leader  English was considered as a potential replacement leader (running against John Key) or deputy leader (against incumbent Gerry Brownlee) in the ensuing leadership election  However, a contest was avoided when the MPs agreed a Key/English ticket would run unopposed in a display of party unity  English took over the deputy leadership and the finance portfolio in the Key shadow cabinet 

Fifth National Government (2008–2017)

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance (2008–2016)

At the 2008 election, English was re-elected by his electorate, winning by a margin of about 15,500 votes  He became Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand and Minister of Finance in the fifth National Government, being sworn into office on 19 November 2008 and continued to serve in those roles until becoming Prime Minister on 12 December 2014  He was also made Minister of Infrastructure in National's first term of government and Minister responsible for Housing New Zealand Corporation and minister responsible for the New Zealand flag consideration process in its third 

He was comfortably re-elected in Clutha-Southland in the 2011 election but opted to run as a party-list candidate in 2014  

The pairing of John Key as leader of the National Party and English as his deputy has been compared to that of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating (in Australia) and Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (in the UK)



ground_truth: Four.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: When did Simon English become the leader of the National Party?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 2: 

English acceded to the role of Finance Minister in the continuing wake of the financial crisis  In response to New Zealand's rising debt, English made budget deficit-reduction his main priority  His first budget outlined three focuses in New Zealand's financial recovery: "improving the business environment and removing roadblocks to growth; investment in productive infrastructure; and improving the way government works"  One of his first acts was creating the National Infrastructure Unit, charged with formulating a plan for infrastructure projects and investments  He commissioned a government-wide spending review, with an aim to reducing government expenditure—with the exceptions of a two-year stimulus package and long-term increases on infrastructure spending 

In April 2011, the Opposition criticised English for suggesting that New Zealand businesses could use New Zealand's low wages to help it compete with Australia  The National Government campaigned for re-election in 2011 on its economic record  The Government boasted growth for five consecutive quarters up to mid-2010, totalling 1 6% of real GDP 

Strong growth resulted in a surplus of $473 million for the 2015/16 financial year, projected to rise to $8 5 billion by 2020/21  In his 2016 Economic and Fiscal Update address, English stated that reducing debt and tackling the costs of the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake were higher priorities than reducing rates of tax 

Allowances issue
In 2009, the media, including TVNZ and TV3 revealed that English was receiving about NZ$900 a week as part of a living allowance for ministers, to live in his own NZ$1 2 million Wellington home  At the time, English also received $276,200 in his annual salary as Deputy Prime Minister  It was also revealed other ministers with homes in the capital city were also claiming accommodation allowances  On 3 August 2009, Prime Minister John Key started a review of the housing allowances claimed by cabinet ministers  English subsequently paid back $12,000 and only claimed about $24,000 a year in living allowances  The Auditor-General's office said in September 2009 that they were making "preliminary enquiries" into parliamentary housing expenses in response to a letter of complaint from Progressive party leader Jim Anderton  Two days later English stated that he would no longer take up any housing allowance and had paid back all the allowance he had received since the November 2008 election 

Prime Minister (2016–2017)

John Key resigned on 12 December, and endorsed English as his successor in the resulting leadership election  Following the drop-out of both Judith Collins and Jonathan Coleman from the leadership election, English was sworn in as the 39th Prime Minister of New Zealand on 12 December 2016 

English appointed his first cabinet on 18 December  In a reshuffle, he appointed Steven Joyce to succeed him as Finance Minister, while most ministerial portfolios remained the same 

In February 2017, English did not attend Waitangi Day commemorations at the historic treaty grounds, reportedly in response to the Ngāpuhi iwi's decision to stop the Prime Minister from speaking at the marae  Ngāpuhi have protested the Government's negotiation of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), which the iwi believe infringes upon Māori sovereignty, and thus does not adhere to the Treaty of Waitangi  English had been invited to attend in an official capacity; his non-attendance was criticised by a Ngāpuhi elder and Opposition leader Andrew Little 

In his first overseas trip as Prime Minister, English travelled to Europe to discuss trade ties, including a prospective New Zealand–European Union free trade agreement  He first travelled to London on 13 January 2017 to meet British Prime Minister Theresa May  Discussing trade relations, English said the two nations were "natural partners" and would "continue to forge ties" after the UK's withdrawal from the EU  He also arranged to meet with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and German Chancellor Angela Merkel   In a meeting with Merkel, English received crucial backing from Germany for a trade deal with the EU  On 16 January, English stated that his government would continue to promote TPPA, despite the United States' decision to withdraw from the agreement  He explained that Southeast Asian countries would now be treated as a priority in negotiations—he also asserted that the United States was ceding influence to China by its rejection of the trade pact 

At a press conference at the Beehive on 1 February 2017, English announced that the 2017 general election would be held on 23 September  The Prime Minister later confirmed that his party would approach ACT, United Future and the Māori Party if confidence and supply agreements were required to form a government following the election  In his second cabinet reshuffle on 24 April, English appointed Gerry Brownlee as his new Foreign Affairs Minister; he also promoted Nikki Kaye to the portfolio of Education Minister, and moved Mark Mitchell into the cabinet to become Defence Minister  The reshuffle was perceived as an election preparation 

On 13 February 2017, English welcomed Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to Wellington  The two leaders reaffirmed their shared trade agenda, and discussed changes to the Australian citizenship pathway which will affect permanent residents originating from New Zealand 

On 19 June, it was reported that Todd Barclay, who succeeded English as MP for Clutha-Southland, had clandestinely recorded one of his employee's conversations the previous year, and that John Key's leaders' budget was used to pay a confidential settlement after the employee resigned  English admitted that he had been aware of the illegal recording and the settlement, and thus implicated in the scandal 

During the 2017 National campaign launch, English introduced a $379 million social investment package including digital learning academies for high school students, more resources for mathematics, and boosting support for teaching second languages in schools, and maintaining National Standards in the school curriculum  Prime Minister English also sought to defend National's financial management and economic track record and claimed that the opposition Labour Party would raise taxes  Early opinion polling had forecast a poor showing in the election for the Labour Party, but in early August 37-year-old Jacinda Ardern took over as Labour leader and seemingly energised younger voters 

At the 2017 general election, National won the largest share of the party vote (44 4%) and the largest number of seats (56) in the House Representatives  However, National lacked enough seats to govern alone due to two of the party's support partners, the Māori Party and United Future, losing their parliamentary seats  In response, English stated that the party would be entering into talks to form a coalition with New Zealand First  Following talks with the two largest parties, New Zealand First entered a coalition arrangement with the Labour Party  English was succeeded as prime minister by Jacinda Ardern on 26 October 

Opposition (2017–2018)

Leader of the Opposition
English was re-elected as National Party leader on 24 October 2017  At the time of his re-election, English announced his intention to stay on as leader until the next general election  On 13 February 2018, however, he stood down as National Party leader due to personal reasons, and instructed the party to put into motion the processes to elect a new leader  He also retired from Parliament  English's resignation followed weeks of speculation that he would step aside for a new leader  On 27 February, he was succeeded as party leader by Simon Bridges as the result of the leadership election held that day 

Post-premiership 
In 2018, English joined the board of Australian conglomerate, Wesfarmers  English serves in Chairmanships of Mount Cook Alpine Salmon, Impact Lab Ltd and Manawanui Support Ltd  He is also a director of The Instillery, Centre for Independent Studies and The Todd Corporation Limited, and is a member of the Impact Advisory Group of Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets 

Political and social views

English is regarded as more socially conservative than his predecessor, John Key  He has stated his opposition to voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, same-sex civil unions, and the decriminalisation of prostitution  As Prime Minister he opposed any "liberalisation" of abortion law 

In 2004, English voted against a bill to establish civil unions for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples  In 2005, he voted for the Marriage (Gender Clarification) Amendment Bill, which would have amended the Marriage Act to define marriage as only between a man and a woman  English voted against the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill, a bill that legalised same-sex marriage in New Zealand  However, in December 2016 he stated, "I'd probably vote differently now on the gay marriage issue  I don't think that gay marriage is a threat to anyone else's marriage" 

In 2009, English voted against the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill, a bill aimed at amending the Misuse of Drugs Act so that cannabis could be used for medical purposes 

Personal life 
English met his future wife, Mary Scanlon, at university  She was studying medicine at the time, and became a general practitioner  Both her parents were immigrants, her father being Samoan and her mother Italian, born on the island of Stromboli  They have six children: a daughter and five sons 

English is a practising Roman Catholic, but has stated that he considers his religious beliefs personal and thus separate from politics 

In June 2002, English took part in TV3's Fight For Life, a celebrity boxing fundraiser to raise money for the Yellow Ribbon anti-youth-suicide campaign, influenced by the death of a teenage nephew in 1997  He lost a split decision to former university colleague Ted Clarke 

Honours
In the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours, English was appointed a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services of over 27 years to the State 

See also

List of New Zealand governments
Politics of New Zealand

References

External links

Profile at National Party 
Profile on Parliament nz
Releases and speeches at Beehive govt nz

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1961 births
21st-century New Zealand politicians
Candidates in the 2017 New Zealand general election
Deputy Prime Ministers of New Zealand
Leaders of the Opposition (New Zealand)
Living people
Members of the Cabinet of New Zealand
Members of the New Zealand House of Representatives
New Zealand farmers
New Zealand finance ministers
New Zealand list MPs
New Zealand MPs for South Island electorates
New Zealand National Party MPs
New Zealand National Party leaders
New Zealand Roman Catholics
New Zealand people of Irish descent
People educated at St  Patrick's College, Silverstream
People from Dipton, New Zealand
People from Lumsden, New Zealand
Prime Ministers of New Zealand
University of Otago alumni
Victoria University of Wellington alumni
Knights Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit

Context 3: Paper Info

Title: Generalized Pole-Residue Method for Dynamic Analysis of Nonlinear Systems based on Volterra Series
Publish Date: March 7, 2023
Author List: Qianying Cao (from State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology), Anteng Chang (from College of Engineering, Ocean University of China), Junfeng Du (from College of Engineering, Ocean University of China), Lin Lu (from State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology)

Figure

Fig  1: Procedure to compute the response by a combination of Volterra series and Laguerre polynomials
Fig  2: Linear frequency response function: (a) Modulus of H 1 (ω), (b) phase angle of H 1 (ω)
Fig  6: Comparison of h 1 (t) based on the analytical and reconstructed by Laguerre polynomials
Fig  11: Response for Case 1: (a) comparison between the proposed method and Runge-Kutta method, (b) contribution of the three components
Fig  18: Comparison of original excitations and reconstructed results: (a) Case 1, (b) Case 2 (c) Case 3
Fig  19: Response to irregular excitation for Case 1: (a) comparison between the proposed method and Runge-Kutta method, (b) contribution of the three components
Fig  23: Input-output dataset used to identify Volterra series: (a) input excitation, (b) output response
Fig  26: Comparison of responses between the predicted and numerical results: (a) response to regular excitation, (b) response to irregular excitation
Parameter values of the irregular excitation

abstract

Dynamic systems characterized by second-order nonlinear ordinary differential equations appear in many fields of physics and engineering  To solve these kinds of problems, time-consuming stepby-step numerical integration methods and convolution methods based on Volterra series in the time domain have been widely used 
In contrast, this work develops an efficient generalized pole-residue method based on the Volterra series performed in the Laplace domain  The proposed method involves two steps: (1) the Volterra kernels are decoupled in terms of Laguerre polynomials, and (2) the partial response related to a single Laguerre polynomial is obtained analytically in terms of the pole-residue method 
Compared to the traditional pole-residue method for a linear system, one of the novelties of the pole-residue method in this paper is how to deal with the higher-order poles and their corresponding coefficients  Because the proposed method derives an explicit, continuous response function of time, it is much more efficient than traditional numerical methods 
Unlike the traditional Laplace domain method, the proposed method is applicable to arbitrary irregular excitations  Because the natural response, forced response and cross response are naturally obtained in the solution procedure, meaningful mathematical and physical insights are gained  In numerical studies, systems with a known equation of motion and an unknown equation of motion are investigated 
For each system, regular excitations and complex irregular excitations with different parameters are studied  Numerical studies validate the good accuracy and high efficiency of the proposed method by comparing it with the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method 

Introduction

Most real dynamic systems, as encountered in mechanical and civil engineering, are inherently nonlinear and include geometric nonlinearities, nonlinear constitutive relations in material or nonlinear resistances, etc    Nonlinear problems are attracting increasing attention from engineers and scientists 
This work focuses on solving nonlinear system vibration problems, i e , computing transient responses of nonlinear oscillators under arbitrary irregular excitations based on a combination of a pole-residue operation and Volterra series  Because Volterra series are single-valued, the scope of the present study is restricted to nonlinear behaviours without bifurcations  
To analyse nonlinear vibration problems, researchers have performed extensive studies and developed various mathematical methods  Popular methods include step-by-step numerical integration methods in the time domain, such as the Runge-Kutta method  This kind of method not only requires a small time-step resolution for obtaining high-precision solutions but also is prone to numerical instability  
For a long response with small time steps, the time domain methods are very costly in computational time  Volterra series is another widely used method, which is the extension of the Duhamel integral for linear systems   Volterra series can reproduce many nonlinear phenomena, but they are very complex due to higher-dimensional convolution integrals  
Since 1980's, significant progress has been made in the general area of the Volterra series  The reader is referred to Ref  for a quite thorough literature review on the relevant topics  After 2017, most papers focus on Volterra series identification  De Paula and Marques proposed a method for the identification of Volterra kernels, which was based on time-delay neural networks 
Son and Kim presented a method for a direct estimation of the Volterra kernel coefficients  Dalla Libera et al  introduced two new kernels for Volterra series identification  Peng et al  used the measured response to identify the kernel function and performed the nonlinear structural damage detection  Only a few papers concentrated on simplifying the computation of convolution integrals 
Traditional methods for computing convolution integrals involved in the Volterra series have been performed in three distinct domains: time, frequency and Laplace  The time domain method based on Volterra series refers to discrete time convolution methods, which also suffer computational cost problems  
Both the frequency domain method and the Laplace domain method based on the Volterra series consist of three steps: (1) Volterra series are transformed into an algebraic equation in the frequency domain or Laplace domain; the algebraic equation is solved by purely algebraic manipulations; and (3) the solution in Step ( ) is transformed back to the time domain 
Many researchers have used the frequency domain method to compute the responses of nonlinear systems  Billings et al  developed a new method for identifying the generalized frequency response function (GFRF) of nonlinear systems and then predicted the nonlinear response based on these GFRFs  Carassale et al  introduced a frequency domain approach for nonlinear bridge aerodynamics and aeroelasticity 
Ho et al  computed an output frequency domain function of a nonlinear damped duffing system modelled by a Volterra series under a sinusoidal input  Kim et al  identified the higher order frequency response functions by using the nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous input technique and the harmonic probing method 
This type of frequency domain method is much more efficient than the time domain method due to the fast Fourier transform algorithm  However, the frequency domain method not only is limited by frequency resolutions but also suffers from leakage problems due to the use of discrete Fourier transforms  In addition, the frequency domain method calculates only a steady-state response 
A natural response generated by initial conditions and a cross response caused by interactions between a system and an excitation are ignored  In contrast, the Laplace domain method can calculate all response components because initial conditions are considered in the computational procedure  However, it has been restricted to analytical operations for simple excitations, such as sinusoidal excitations and exponential excitations  
The proposed method falls into the category of the Volterra series method computed in the Laplace domain  Unlike the traditional Laplace domain method, the proposed method is applicable to arbitrary irregular excitations  Because the proposed method follows a similar path as a pole-residue method for linear systems , the proposed method to solve nonlinear system vibration problems is called the generalized pole-residue method 
The main concept of the pole-residue method developed by Hu et al  was that the poles and residues of the response could be easily obtained from those of the input and system transfer function to obtain the closed-form response solution of linear systems  This method included three steps: (1) writing the system transfer function into pole-residue form; (2) writing the excitation into pole-residue form by the Prony-SS method; (3) computing the poles and residues of the response by an algebraic operation based on those from system and excitation 
Compared to Hu et al  , which was regarded as an efficient tool to compute responses of linear systems, the generalized pole-residue method in this paper is introduced to compute responses of nonlinear systems  The proposed method involves two steps: (1) the Volterra kernels are decoupled in terms of Laguerre polynomials, and (2) the partial response related to a single Laguerre polynomial is obtained analytically in terms of the pole-residue method 
Compared to the traditional pole-residue method for a linear system, one of the novelties of the generalized pole-residue method is how to deal with the higher-order poles and their corresponding coefficients  Similar to the Taylor series, the Volterra series representation is an infinite series, and convergence conditions are needed to assure that the representation is meaningful 
Because the proposed method is based on the Volterra series, only the system with convergent Volterra series representation can be treated by the proposed method  The paper is organized as follows  In Section 2, the nonlinear response is modelled by a Volterra series, and Volterra kernel functions are decoupled by Laguerre polynomials 
Then, the pole-residue method for computing explicit responses is developed in Section 3  Numerical studies and discussions are given in Section 4  Finally, the conclusions are drawn in Section 5 

Response calculation based on Volterra series

A nonlinear oscillator, whose governing equation of motion is given by where z(t, y, ẏ) represents an arbitrary nonlinear term; m, c, and k are the mass, damping and linear stiffness, respectively; y(t), ẏ(t) and ÿ(t) are the displacement, velocity and acceleration, respectively; and f (t) is the time-dependent excitation 
If the energy of excitation f (t) is limited, the nonlinear response under zero initial conditions (i e , zero displacement and zero velocity) can be represented by the Volterra series : where N is the order of Volterra series and In Eq  3, h 1 (τ ) is called the first-order Volterra kernel function, which represents the linear behaviour of the system; h n (τ 1 ,      
, τ n ) for n > 1 are the higher-order Volterra kernel functions, which describe the nonlinear behaviour of the system  The complete formulation of y(t) includes infinite series where the labour of calculating the n th term increases quickly with the growth of n  Fortunately, the response accuracy may be ensured by the first several order Volterra series 
This is proved here in numerical studies  The commonly known Laguerre polynomials are represented as : where p i is the order of the Laguerre polynomials and a i is the damping rate  The Laguerre polynomials satisfy the orthogonal relationship expressed as: By using Laguerre polynomials, the Volterra kernel function h n (t 1 ,      
, t n ) in Eq  3 can be decoupled as follows : where the coefficient is computed resorting to the orthogonal relationship in Eq  5: Substituting Eq  6 into Eq  3 yields       The above operation that uses the Laguerre polynomials to decouple Volterra higher order kernel functions has been well-developed 
The reader is referred to Refs  for details about the adopted technique  After decoupling Volterra higher order kernel functions in time, one can regroup Eq  8 into:       By denoting Eq  9 becomes The above procedure to compute the nonlinear response by a combination of Volterra series and Laguerre polynomials is schematically shown in Fig   
Volterra kernel functions h n (t 1 ,       , t n ) can be obtained by either an equation of motion or measured input-output signals  To derive a closedform solution of the response, we must obtain a closed-form solution of x i (t) first  In the following presentation, a closed-form solution of the aforementioned x i (t) and y n (t) is derived by using the pole-residue method 
3  Pole-residue method for calculating x i (t) and y n (t) Performing the Laplace transform of x i (t) in Eq  10 yields where in which Eq  13 includes a single pole and several higher-order poles  For k = 0, −a i is a single pole, and b p i (0) is a corresponding coefficient, namely, the residue  For k > 0, −a i are higher-order poles, and b p i (k) are corresponding coefficients 
For an irregular excitation signal f (t) of a finite duration of T , it can always be approximated into a pole-residue form by using the complex exponential signal decomposition method-Prony-SS : where N ℓ is the number of components; α ℓ and λ ℓ are constant coefficients, which either are real numbers or occur in complex conjugate pairs 
We define λ ℓ = −δ ℓ + iΩ ℓ , where Ω ℓ is the excitation frequency and δ ℓ is the damping factor of the ℓ th component  We denote α ℓ = A ℓ e iθ ℓ , where A ℓ is the amplitude and θ ℓ is the sinusoidal initial phase in radians  Taking the Laplace transform of Eq  15 yields Note that the concept of the Prony-SS method is similar to that of a principal component method 
A smooth excitation usually requires just several terms to achieve a good approximation  For high irregular loadings, including more terms would achieve a better approximation  Substituting Eqs  13 and 16 into Eq  12 yields Expressing xi (s) in its pole-residue form yields where λ ℓ are simple poles, and the corresponding residues are easily obtained by
and −a i are higher-order poles, and the corresponding coefficients are firstly derived as: By taking the inverse Laplace transform of Eq  18, a closed-form solution is obtained: Substituting Eqs  11 and 21 into Eq  2 yields Theoretically speaking, the proposed method for deriving the closed-form solution of the nonlinear response is applicable to any order of the Volterra series 
For practical engineering, usually only the first several order responses dominate  By setting up N = 2, Eq  22 can be simplified into three components: where the natural response, which is only related to system poles, is given by and the cross response, which is related to both system poles and excitation poles, is given by
and the forced response, which is related only to excitation poles, is given by The first term in Eq  26 is the first-order forced response governed by the excitation frequency, i e , the imaginary part of the pole λ ℓ   The second term corresponds to the second-order nonlinear forced response, which includes the sum frequency and difference frequency responses governed by λ ℓ + λ j  
Eq  26 straightforwardly offers visible information about the possible nonlinear vibrations by the cooperation of excitation frequencies  Particularly, consider a sinusoidal excitation f (t) = sin ω r t, which can be expressed as f (t) = γe λt + γ * e λ * t , where γ = −0 5i and λ = iω r   Substituting these values into Eq 
26, the second term of Eq  26 is simplified as where the first term is the difference frequency response, and the second term is the sum frequency response 

Numerical studies

In practical engineering, some systems have an accurate equation of motion  Additionally, some systems have difficulty constructing their equations of motion because of complex nonlinear dynamic behaviours and uncertain system parameters  In this article, a system with a known equation of motion is called a known system, and a system with an unknown equation of motion is called an unknown system for simplicity 
In this section, two numerical studies are presented  The first study verifies the proposed method using a known nonlinear oscillator, and the second study demonstrates the applicability of the proposed method to an unknown system  Throughout the numerical studies, the unit system is the metre-kilogramme-second (MKS) system; for conciseness, explicit units for quantities are omitted 

A known nonlinear system

This study chooses a nonlinear oscillator written as: where mass m = 1, damping c = 1, linear stiffness k 1 = 10, quadratic stiffness k 2 = 20 and cubic stiffness k 3 = 20  It is a case that has been studied in a previously published article   The linear natural frequency of the system ω 0 = k 1 /m = 3 16 and the damping ratio ζ = c/(2mω 0 ) = 15 8% 
This kind of oscillator occurs in many engineering problems, such as a model of fluid resonance in a narrow gap between large vessels 



ground_truth: October 2001.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What does the paper aim to solve?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 3:  In the model, k 1 y represents the linear restoring force of the fluid, and k 2 y 2 and k 3 y 3 are respectively the quadratic and cubic nonlinear restoring forces of the fluid 

Volterra kernel functions

Generally, the first several order responses dominate the total response of a system  Hence, the order of the Volterra series in Eq  22 is chosen to be 3, namely, N = 3  For computing the first three order responses from Eq  22, the first three order Volterra kernel functions need to be known  Since Volterra kernel functions and corresponding frequency response functions are related by a specific Fourier transform pair, we can first write the first three orders of frequency response functions directly from Eq  28 
Then, Volterra kernel functions are obtained by the inverse Fourier transform  Based on the harmonic probing algorithm , the linear frequency response function (LFRF) H 1 (ω), the quadratic frequency response function (QFRF) H 2 (ω 1 , ω 2 ) and the cubic frequency response function (CFRF) H 3 (ω 1 , ω 2 , ω 3 ) are analytically given by:
and Figures show H 1 (ω), H 2 (ω 1 , ω 2 ) and H 3 (ω 1 , ω 2 , ω 3 ), respectively, which agree well with those reported in Ref    As expected, the modulus of H 1 (ω) in Fig  peaks near the linear natural frequency ω 0 , and the phase angle decreases monotonically from 0 to -π with increasing frequency 
Figure shows the sum frequency QFRF, where the energy converges along the line of ω 1 +ω 2 ≈ ω 0   Therefore, when the sum frequency of a two-tone excitation equals the linear resonant frequency, the second-order response may reach its maximum  Additionally, those pairs of excitations in line ω 1 + ω 2 ≈ ω 0 may produce non-negligible vibration magnitudes due to second-order nonlinear effects 
For the difference frequency QFRF in Fig  (b), the energy converges along two main lines, i e , ω 1 ≈ ω 0 and ω 2 ≈ ω 0   Figures show moduli of H 3 (ω, ω, ω) and H 3 (ω, ω, −ω), which are diagonal terms of the sum frequency CFRF and the difference frequency CFRF, respectively  While the modulus of H 3 (ω, ω, ω) peaks near ω ≈ ω 0 /3 and ω 0 , that of H 3 (ω, ω, −ω) peaks near ω ≈ ω 0 with a small hump around ω ≈ ω 0 /2 
Values at ω ≈ ω 0 /3 and ω 0 /2 may be magnified by higher-order stiffness terms in Eq  28  By performing the inverse fast Fourier transform to Eqs  29-31, the corresponding linear impulse response function h 1 (t), quadratic impulse response function h 2 (t 1 , t 2 ) and cubic impulse response function h 3 (t 1 , t 2 , t 3 ) are obtained 
Here, h 1 (t) and h 2 (t 1 , t 2 ) are plotted in Figs  , respectively, and h 3 (t, t, t) is shown in Fig    In the numerical implementation, Eqs  29-31 have been utilized with the frequency interval ∆ω = 0 1, number of frequency components N n = 1025, and cut-off frequencies 102 4 and −102 4  For decoupling Volterra kernel functions by using Laguerre polynomials, the damping rate and number of Laguerre polynomials for each order Volterra kernel function need to be determined (see Eqs  4 and 6) 
In this example, we set a 1 = a 2 = a 3 = 2 and R 1 = R 2 = R 3 = 24 because coefficients c p 1    pn become very small when R n > 24, n = 1, 2, 3  According to Eq  7, the coefficients of the first three order Volterra kernel functions are calculated, which are shown in Figs  9 and 10  For convenience, Fig  plots only c p 1 p 2 p 3 for p 3 = 0 
With the increase of the order of Laguerre polynomials, coefficients in Figs  9 and 10 gradually decrease, which illustrates how the first several orders of Laguerre polynomials dominate all orders of the Volterra kernel function  With the known Laguerre polynomials and corresponding coefficients, Volterra kernel functions are reconstructed by Eq  6 
For comparison, reconstructed Volterra kernel functions are also plotted in Figs    The reconstructed results agree well with the analytical values, which verifies the accuracy of the decomposition 

Sinusoidal excitation

From Eq  28, we consider a sinusoidal excitation where A and Ω are the amplitude and the frequency, respectively  Five cases of A and Ω are shown in Table   Excitation frequencies in Cases 1 and 2 are larger than the linear natural frequency (ω 0 ≈ 3 16), those in Case 3 are very close to ω 0 , and those in Cases 4 and 5 are smaller than ω 0  
All cases have same amplitudes  The poles of a sinusoidal excitation are λ 1,2 = ±iΩ, and the residues are α 1,2 = ∓iA/2  Numerical values of excitation poles and residues for different cases are listed in Table   Table : Parameter values, poles and residues of the sinusoidal excitation Substituting poles and residues of the excitation, as well as those of the system into Eqs 
20 and 19, response coefficients β p i ,k corresponding to system poles −a i and response coefficients γ p i ,ℓ corresponding to excitation poles λ ℓ are calculated, respectively  According to Eq  22, the first three orders of responses for each case in Table are calculated  Figures )-15(a) show the comparison of responses obtained by the proposed method and the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method with ∆t = 10 −4  
For Cases 1 and 2, the first-order responses agree well with the total responses obtained by the Runge-Kutta method, and the higher-order responses only slightly improve the transient parts  For Cases 3-5, the sum of the first three orders of responses is in good agreement with the Runge-Kutta solution 
When the response nonlinearity increases, higher-order responses need to be considered  In other words, the proposed method can accurately compute the nonlinear responses by choosing a small number N of Volterra series terms  Figures )-15(b) show the contributions of the three response components for the five cases 
In each case, the first-order response is the most dominant component, and the contributions of secondand third-order responses are much less than those of the first-order response  Especially for Cases 1 and 2, whose excitation frequencies are far from the linear natural frequency, second-and thirdorder responses are close to zero 
This may be because the QFRF and CFRF approach zero when the frequency is larger than 4 rad/s (see Figs  )  Furthermore, the mean values of the first-order responses are approximately zero, and those of the second-order responses are always smaller than zero, which are the difference frequency components in Eq  27 
Moreover, it is clearly observed that second-order responses for Cases 3-5 exhibit a periodic oscillation with a period near half of that for the first-order response, which is excited by the sum frequency component of the excitation (see second part of Eq  27)  Compared with steady-state solutions of first-and second-order responses, those of third-order responses in Cases 3-5 are no longer single regular motions 
By performing the FFT, frequency spectra of these three third-order responses are shown in Fig    We find that these three third-order responses are all dominated by their own fundamental harmonic component and the third harmonic (triple frequency) component  Figure shows the computational time to calculate the response of the oscillator for Case 1 by the proposed method, the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method and the convolution method 
The proposed method, which has an explicit solution, is much more efficient in computational time than the latter two methods, which need small time steps to obtain high-precision solutions  In particular, the efficiency of the proposed method increases with the length of the response time  Computation time (sec )
t=0 02s Convolution, t=0 02s Convolution, t=0 001s Runge-Kutta, t=0 001s Fig  : Comparison of computation efficiency of the proposed method, the fourth-fifth order Runge-Kutta method and the convolution method regular loading in Case 1

Irregular excitation

In Eq  28, considering an irregular excitation consisting of several cosine functions where N f is the number of cosine components; A n , Ω n and θ n are the amplitude, frequency and phase angle of the n th component, respectively  Table lists three cases of these parameters  In each case, the amplitudes of all components are the same, and phase angles θ n uniformly distributed between 0 and 2π are randomly generated 
To decompose the excitation into a pole-residue form, the Prony-SS method is used, whose concept is similar to that of a principal component method  The readers are referred to Ref  for details  The chosen rank of each case is also shown in Table   Figure shows the comparison of original excitations and reconstructed results of these three cases, which all have excellent agreement 
show the results computed by the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method  In all cases, the sums of the first three orders of responses agree well with those obtained by the Runge-Kutta method  The contributions of the first three orders of responses for each case are plotted in Figs  )-21(b)  Similarly, the system vibration is dominated by the first-order response 
However, the contributions of second-and third-order significantly grow with increasing excitation magnitude and frequency number  Furthermore, when the magnitude of the nonlinear response becomes large, sharp troughs are present  This phenomenon may be induced by the nonlinear stiffness  While the first-order response fails to capture these troughs, the higher-order responses successfully capture these troughs 
Figure plots the computational time to calculate the response of the oscillator for the irregular loading in Case 1 by the proposed method and the fourth-fifth order Runge-Kutta method, respectively  While the fourth-fifth order Runge-Kutta method is more efficient under a small response length, the proposed method becomes much more efficient when the response length is larger than about 130 s 
In addition, the proposed method obtains the explicit response solution, so one can directly obtain the response value at a specific time t p instead of integrating from 0 to t p for traditional numerical methods  Computation time (sec ) Proposed, t=0 02s Runge-Kutta, t=0 001s Fig  : Comparison of computation efficiency of the method and the fourth-fifth order Runge-Kutta method for irregular loading in Case 1

An unknown nonlinear

To check the applicability of the proposed method to an unknown nonlinear system, a known input excitation and its corresponding response are used to identify its Volterra kernel functions  When the Volterra kernel functions are known, we can follow the procedure in Section 4 1 to predict system responses 
In this study, the input excitation is white noise with a constant power spectrum S 0 = 0 001, and the corresponding response is obtained by solving Eq  28 by the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method, which is shown in Fig    From Section 4 1, we determine that the sum of the first two orders of responses agrees well with the total response 
In this study, the order of Volterra series N is chosen to be 2, damping rates of Laguerre polynomials are a 1 = a 2 = 2, and numbers of Laguerre polynomials are R 1 = R 2 = 24  To estimate the first two orders of Volterra kernel functions, a matrix equation is constructed using excitation data and response data 
By using the least square method to solve this matrix equation, coefficients c p 1 and c p 1 p 2 in Eq  8 are identified  Figure plots c p 1 and c p 1 p 2 , respectively, which have good agreement with the exact results in Fig    Then, the first two order Volterra kernel functions are constructed by Eq  6 
Compared with the exact results in Figs  , the identified Volterra kernel functions in Fig  completely agree well with the exact solutions  Note that the white noise excitation, which can excite more frequency components of the response, is chosen to obtain good Volterra kernel functions  A regular excitation f (t) = sin(πt) and an irregular excitation f (t) = N f n=1 A n cos(Ω n t + θ n ) with A n = 0 3 and Ω n varying from 0 to 40 with equal interval 1 are chosen as input excitations 
The predicted responses, along with results obtained by the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method, are shown in Fig    In both cases, the proposed method accurately predicts system responses  As presented in Eq  23, a nonlinear response is the sum of three terms: natural response y s (t), forced response y f (t) and cross response y c (t) 
These individual terms, as well as their sum to two excitations, are shown in Figs  27 and 28, respectively  As shown in Figs  and 28, both first-and second-order responses include the natural response y s (t) and the forced response y f (t), but the cross response y c (t) only exists in second-order responses 
When t becomes larger, both y s (t) and y c (t) diminish due to the presence of system damping, and the total response is entirely governed by y f (t)  Moreover, we notice some features at t = 0 for these components, including y s (0) = −y f (0) for the first-order response and y s (0) + y f (0) = −y c (0) for the second-order response, which are due to imposed zero initial conditions 

Conclusions

Considering arbitrary irregular excitations, an efficient generalized pole-residue method to compute the nonlinear dynamic response modelled by the Volterra series was developed  A core of the proposed method was obtaining poles and corresponding coefficients of Volterra kernel functions, then those of each order response modelled by each order Volterra series 
Once the poles and corresponding coefficients of Volterra kernel functions and excitations were both available, the remaining derivation could follow a similar pole-residue method that had been developed for ordinary linear oscillators  To obtain the poles and corresponding coefficients of Volterra kernel functions, two steps were included: (1) using Laguerre polynomials to decouple higher-order Volterra kernel functions with respect to time and (2) obtaining poles and corresponding coefficients of Laguerre polynomials in the Laplace domain 
Because the proposed method gave an explicit, continuous response function of time, it was much more efficient than traditional numerical methods  Moreover, many meaningful physical and mathematical insights were gained because not only each order response but also the natural response, the forced response and the cross response of each order were obtained in the solution procedure 
To demonstrate that the proposed method was not only suitable for a system with a known equation of motion but also applicable to a system with an unknown equation of motion, two numerical studies were conducted  For each study, regular excitations and complex irregular excitations with different parameters were investigated 
The efficiency of the proposed method was verified by the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method  This paper only computes the response under zero initial conditions  The response under non-zero initial conditions will be investigated in our future work 



ground_truth: The paper aims to solve nonlinear system vibration problems efficiently.