Experimental study of a symmetrical piecewise base-excited oscillator

This paper presents an experimental study on a base-excited piecewise linear oscillator with symmetrical flexible constrains of high stiffness ratio (above 20). The details of the adopted design of the oscillator, the experimental set-up, and calibration procedure are briefly discussed. The regions of chaotic motion predicted theoretically were confirmed by the experimental results arranged into bifurcation diagrams. Clearance, stiffness 1Yltio, amplitude, and frequency of the external force were used as branching parameters. The discussion of the system dynamics is based on bifurcation diagrams and Lissajous curves. The investigated system tends to be periodic for large clearances and chaotic for small ones. This picture is reversed for the amplitude of the forcing changes, where periodic motion occurred for small values and chaos dominated for larger forcing. The same behavior is observed for increasing frequency ratio where, for values below the natural frequency, the most interesting dynamics occurs. For the investigated parameter values, the stiffness ratio variation produces only periodic motion.