Non-linear dynamics of a system of coupled oscillators with essential stiffness non-linearities

We study the resonant dynamics of a two-degree-of-freedom system composed of a linear oscillator weakly coupled to a strongly non-linear one, with an essential (non-linearizable) cubic stiffness non-linearity. For the undamped system this leads to a series of internal resonances, depending on the level of (conserved) total energy of oscillation. We study in detail the 1:1 internal resonance, and show that the undamped system possesses stable and unstable synchronous periodic motions (non-linear normal modes—NNMs), as well as, asynchronous periodic motions (elliptic orbits—EOs). Furthermore, we show that when damping is introduced certain NNMs produce resonance capture phenomena, where a trajectory of the damped dynamics gets ‘captured’ in the neighborhood of a damped NNM before ‘escaping’ and becoming an oscillation with exponentially decaying amplitude. In turn, these resonance captures may lead to passive non-linear energy pumping phenomena from the linear to the non-linear oscillator. Thus, sustained resonance capture appears to provide a dynamical mechanism for passively transferring energy from one part of the system to another, in a one-way, irreversible fashion. Numerical integrations confirm the analytical predictions.     

A very complicated structure of resonances in a nonlinear system with cyclic symmetry: Nonlinear forced localization

The fundamental and subharmonic resonances of a nonlinear cyclic assembly are examined using the asymptotic method of multiple-scales. The system consists of a number of identical cantilever beams coupled by means of weak linear stiffnesses. Assuming beam inextensionality, geometric nonlinearities arise due to longitudinal inertia and the nonlinear relation between beam curvature and transverse displacement. The governing nonlinear partial differential equations are discretized by a Galerkin procedure and the resulting set of coupled ordinary differential equations is solved using an asymptotic analysis. The unforced assembly is known to possess localized nonlinear normal modes, which give rise to a very complicated topological structure of fundamental and subharmonic response curves. In contrast to the linear system which exhibits as many forced resonances as its number of degrees of freedom, the nonlinear system is found to possess a number of additional resonance branches which have no counterparts in linear theory. Some of the additional resonances are spatially localized, corresponding to motions of only a small subset of periodic elements. The analytical results are verified by numerical Poincaré maps, and the forced localization features of the nonlinear assembly are demonstrated by considering its response to impulsive excitations.     

Nonlinear targeted energy transfer: state of the art and new perspectives

Nonlinear Dynamics - Following a brief review of current progress in the field of nonlinear targeted energy transfer (TET), we discuss some general ideas and methods in this field and describe...     

Primary wave transmission in systems of elastic rods with granular interfaces

We study analytically and numerically primary pulse transmission in one dimensional systems of identical linearly elastic non-dispersive rods separated by identical homogeneous granular layers composed of n beads. The beads interact elastically through a strongly (essentially) nonlinear Hertzian contact law. The main challenge in studying pulse transmission in such strongly nonlinear media is to analyze the ‘basic problem’, namely, the dynamical response of a single intermediate granular layer, confined from both ends by barely touching linear elastic rods subject to impulsive excitation of the left rod. The analysis of the basic problem is carried out under two basic assumptions; namely, of sufficiently small duration of the shock excitation applied to the first layer of the system, and of sufficiently small mass of each bead in the granular interface compared to the mass of each rod. In fact, the smallness of the mass of the bead defines the small parameter in the asymptotic analysis of this problem. Both assumptions are reasonable from the point of view of practical applications. In the analysis we focus only in primary pulse propagation, by neglecting secondary pulse reflections caused by wave scattering at each granular interface and considering only the transmission of the main (primary) pulse across the interface to the neighboring elastic rod. Two types of shock excitations are considered. The first corresponds to fixed time duration (but still much smaller compared to the characteristic time of pulse propagation through the length of each rod), whereas the second type corresponds to a pulse duration that depends on the small parameter of the problem. The influence of the number of beads of the granular interface on the primary wave transmission is studied, and it is shown that at granular interfaces with a relatively low number of beads fast time scale oscillations are excited with increasing amplitudes with increasing number of beads. For a larger number of beads, primary pulse transmission is by means of solitary wave trains resulting from the dispersion of the original shock pulse; in that case fast oscillations result due to interference phenomena caused by the scattering of the main pulse at the boundary of the interface. Considering a periodic system of rods we demonstrate significant reduction of the primary pulse when transmitted through a sequence of granular interfaces. This result highlights the efficacy of applying granular interfaces for passive shock mitigation in layered elastic media.     

Interactions of propagating waves in a one-dimensional chain of linear oscillators with a strongly nonlinear local attachment

We study the interaction of propagating wavetrains in a one-dimensional chain of coupled linear damped oscillators with a strongly nonlinear, lightweight, dissipative local attachment which acts, in essence, as nonlinear energy sink—NES. Both symmetric and highly un-symmetric NES configurations are considered, labelled S-NES and U-NES, respectively, with strong (in fact, non-linearizable or nearly non-linearizable) stiffness nonlinearity. Especially for the case of U-NES we show that it is capable of effectively arresting incoming slowly modulated pulses with a single fast frequency by scattering the energy of the pulse to a range of frequencies, by locally dissipating a major portion of the incoming energy, and then by backscattering residual waves upstream. As a result, the wave transmission past the location of the NES is minimized, and the NES acts, in effect, as passive wave arrestor and reflector. Analytical reduced-order modeling of the dynamics is performed through complexification/averaging. In addition, governing nonlinear dynamics is studied computationally and compared to the analytical predictions. Results from the reduced order model recover the exact computational simulations.     

Nonlinear Resonances Leading to Strong Pulse Attenuation in Granular Dimer Chains

We study nonlinear resonances in granular periodic one-dimensional chains. Specifically, we consider a diatomic (“dimer”) chain composed of alternating “heavy” and “light” spherical beads with no precompression. In a previous work (Jayaprakash et al. in Phys. Rev. E 83(3):036606, 2011) we discussed the existence of families of solitary waves in these systems that propagate without distortion of their waveforms. We attributed this dynamical feature to “antiresonance” in the dimer that led to the complete elimination of radiating waves in the trail of the propagating solitary wave. Antiresonances were associated with certain symmetries of the velocity waveforms of the dimer beads. In this work we report on the opposite phenomenon: the break of waveform symmetries, leading to drastic attenuation of traveling pulses due to radiation of traveling waves to the far field. We use the connotation of “resonance” to describe this dynamical phenomenon resulting in maximum amplification of the amplitudes of radiated waves that emanate from the propagating pulse. Each antiresonance can be related to a corresponding resonance in the appropriate parameter plane. We study the nonlinear resonance mechanism numerically and analytically and show that it can lead to drastic attenuation of pulses propagating in the dimer. Furthermore, we estimate the discrete values of the normalized mass ratio between the light and heavy beads of the dimer for which resonances are realized. Finally, we show that by adding precompression the resonance mechanism gradually degrades, as does the capacity of the dimer to passively attenuate propagating pulses.     

Relaxation oscillations,subharmonic orbits and chaos in the dynamics of a linear lattice with a local essentially nonlinear attachment

We study the dynamic interactions between traveling waves propagating in a linear lattice and a lightweight, essentially nonlinear and damped local attachment. Correct to leading order, we reduce the dynamics to a strongly nonlinear damped oscillator forced by two harmonic terms. One of the excitation frequencies is characteristic of the traveling wave that impedes to the attachment, whereas the other accounts for local lattice dynamics. These two frequencies are energy-independent; a third energy-dependent frequency is present in the problem, characterizing the nonlinear oscillation of the attachment when forced by the traveling wave. We study this three-frequency strongly nonlinear problem through slow-fast partitions of the dynamics and resort to action-angle coordinates and Melnikov analysis. For damping below a critical threshold, we prove the existence of relaxation oscillations of the attachment; these oscillations are associated with enhanced targeted energy transfer from the traveling wave to the attachment. Moreover, in the limit of weak or no damping, we prove the existence of subharmonic oscillations of arbitrarily large periods, and of chaotic motions. The analytical results are supported by numerical simulations of the reduced order model.     

Karhunen–Loeve analysis and order reduction of the transient dynamics of linear coupled oscillators with strongly nonlinear end attachments

The Karhunen–Loeve (K–L) decomposition method has become a popular technique to create low-dimensional, reduced-order models of dynamical systems. In this paper this technique is applied to a multi-degree-of-freedom chain of linear coupled oscillators with a strongly nonlinear (nonlinearizable), lightweight end attachment. By performing K–L decomposition we show that the lightweight nonlinear attachment (possessing 0.5% of the total mass of the chain) can affect the global dynamics of the linear chain, exhibiting nonlinear energy-pumping phenomena; that is, irreversible passive targeted energy transfers from the linear chain to the nonlinear end attachment, where this energy is locally confined and dissipated without ‘spreading back’ to the primary system. It is shown that the occurrence of energy pumping can be identified by studying the dominant K–L modes of the dynamics, as well as, the energy distribution among them. Moreover, by comparing the action of the strongly nonlinear attachment to the classical linear vibration absorber, we show robustness of passive nonlinear energy absorption over wide parameter ranges. On the other hand, the case-sensitive nature of K–L-based reduced-order models has always been a constraint for K–L decomposition, since one cannot quantify a priori the error bound of such low-dimensional reduced-order models when different initial conditions are applied to the system. To alleviate this constraint, the paper proposes a multiple correlation coefficient (MCC) as a quantitative measure to effectively assess the applicability of a K–L-based reduced-order model derived for a specific set of initial conditions to a small neighborhood of initial conditions containing that initial state. The derived reduced-order models are validated through reconstruction of the system responses and comparisons to direct numerical integrations.