Three-to-One Internal Resonances in Hinged-Clamped Beams

The nonlinear planar response of a hinged-clamped beam to a primary excitation of either its first mode or its second mode is investigated. The analysis accounts for mid-plane stretching, a static axial load and a restraining spring at one end, and modal damping. For a range of axial loads, the second natural frequency is approximately three times the first natural frequency and hence the first and second modes may interact due to a three-to-one internal resonance. The method of multiple scales is used to attack directly the governing nonlinear partial-differential equation and derive two sets of four first-order nonlinear ordinary-differential equations describing the modulation of the amplitudes and phases of the first two modes in the case of primary resonance of either the first or the second mode. Periodic motions and periodically and chaotically modulated motions of the beam are determined by investigating the equilibrium and dynamic solutions of the modulation equations. For the case of primary resonance of the first mode, only two-mode solutions are possible, whereas for the case of primary resonance of the second mode, single- and two-mode solutions are possible. The two-mode equilibrium solutions of the modulation equations may undergo a supercritical or a subcritical Hopf bifurcation, depending on the magnitude of the axial load. A shooting technique is used to calculate limit cycles of the modulation equations and Floquet theory is used to ascertain their stability. The limit cycles correspond to periodically modulated motions of the beam. The limit cycles are found to undergo cyclic-fold bifurcations and period-doubling bifurcations, leading to chaos. The chaotic attractors may undergo boundary crises, resulting in the destruction of the chaotic attractors and their basins of attraction.