Experimental and Numerical Chaos in Continuous Systems: Two Case Studies

by Graham R. Cook, Natl Inst of Standards and, Technology, Gaithersburg, United States,
Emil Simiu, Natl Inst of Standards and, Technology, Gaithersburg, United States,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Mechanics Computing in 1990's and Beyond

Abstract:

Motivated by recent numerical investigations according to which certain types of deep-water compliant offshore structures may experience undesirable chaotic motions, two types of experimental structural systems capable of exhibiting chaotic or apparently chaotic behavior were studied. The first type of system is a harmonically forced buckled column with a concentrated mass at midspan and with pretensioned continuous springs. For this system a model with acceptable predictive capabilities can be constructed if the continuous springs are represented by a sufficient number of lumped masses with discrete stiffnesses. The second type of system consists either of a galloping square bar or of a pair of parallel, elastically coupled galloping square bars. Our results suggest that the behavior of this type of system, including apparently chaotic behavior, can be described at least to a first approximation by conventional fluidelastic models.

Subject Headings: Structural behavior | Continuous structures | Structural systems | Numerical analysis | Structural analysis | Offshore structures | Ocean engineering

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