An application of Curie’s principle to elastoplastic dynamics

This paper deals with the stability and the dynamics of a harmonically excited elastic–perfectly plastic unsymmetrical oscillator. Stability of the periodic orbits is analytically investigated with a perturbation approach. The occurrence of ratcheting effect is discussed for this system, and is related to the loss of symmetry of the periodic orbit in the phase space. Curie’s principle of symmetry is numerically verified for the symmetrical system with positive damping. Therefore, the observation of ratcheting phenomenon is necessarily associated to a breaking of symmetry in the constitutive behaviour, or in the forcing term. However, the generalized version of Curie’s principle has to be considered when a negative damping is introduced.