Random excitation of coupled oscillators with single and simultaneous internal resonances

The primary objective of this paper is to examine the random response characteristics of coupled nonlinear oscillators in the presence of single and simultaneous internal resonances. A model of two coupled beams with nonlinear inertia interaction is considered. The primary beam is directly excited by a random support motion, while the coupled beam is indirectly excited through autoparametric coupling and parametric excitation. For a single one-to-two internal resonance, we used Gaussian and non-Gaussian closures, Monte Carlo simulation, and experimental testing to predict and measure response statistics and stochastic bifurcation in the mean square. The mean square stability boundaries of the coupled beam equilibrium position are obtained by a Gaussian closure scheme. The stochastic bifurcation of the coupled beam is predicted theoretically and experimentally. The stochastic bifurcation predicted by non-Gaussian closure is found to take place at a lower excitation level than the one predicted by Gaussian closure and Monte Carlo simulation. It is also found that above a certain excitation level, the solution obtained by non-Gaussian closure reveals numerical instability at much lower excitation levels than those obtained by Gaussian and Monte Carlo approaches. The experimental observations reveal that the coupled beam does not reach a stationary state, as reflected by the time evolution of the mean square response. For the case of simultaneous internal resonances, both Gaussian and non-Gaussian closures fail to predict useful results, and attention is focused on Monte Carlo simulation and experimental testing. The effects of nonlinear coupling parameters, internal detuning ratios, and excitation spectral density level are considered in both investigations. It is found that both studies reveal common nonlinear features such as bifurcations in the mean square responses of the coupled beam and modal interaction in the neighborhood of internal resonances. Furthermore, there is an upper limit for the excitation level above which the system experiences unbounded response in the neighborhood of simultaneous internal resonances.