Experiment on Chaotic Oscillations of a Post-Buckled Reinforced Beam Constrained by an Axial Spring(Special Issue on Nonlinear Dynamics)

Experimental results are presented on chaotic oscillations of a post-buckled reinforced beam subjected to lateral excitations.The beam is partially reinforced and is clamped at both ends.One end of the beam is arranged to move to an axial displacement by an elastic spring.The beam is deformed to a post-buckled configuration by the axial constraint.Under the post-buckled condition of the beam, chaotic responses are generated in specified regions of exciting frequency.The chaotic responses are examined by the Fourier spectrum, the Poincare projection and the maximum Lyapunov exponent.It is found among other tings that the chaos of the reinforced beam is mainly generated with the lower modes of vibration.The instability regions of chaos as well as the effect of inertia in the axial direction are also examined.