Non-linear vibrations of cantilever beams with feedback delays

Abstract A comprehensive investigation of the effect of feedback delays on the non-linear vibrations of a piezoelectrically actuated cantilever beam is presented. In the first part of this work, we examine the linear and non-linear free responses of a beam subjected to a delayed-acceleration feedback. We show that the trivial solution loses stability via a Hopf bifurcation leading to limit-cycle oscillations. We analyze the stability of the dynamic response in the postbifurcation, close to the stability boundaries by examining the nature of the Hopf bifurcation and away from the stability boundaries by using the method of harmonic balance and Floquet theory. We find that, increasing the gain for certain feedback delays may culminate in quasiperiodic and chaotic oscillations of the beam. In the second part, we analyze the effect of feedback delays on a beam subjected to a harmonic base excitations. We find that the nature of the forced response is largely defined by the stability of the trivial solutions of the unforced response. For stable trivial solutions (i.e., inside the stability boundaries of the trivial solutions), the homogeneous response emanating from the feedback diminishes, leaving only the particular solution resulting from the external excitation. In this case, delayed feedback acts as a vibration absorber. On the other hand, for unstable trivial solutions, the response contains two co-existing frequencies. Depending on the excitation amplitude and the commensurability of the delayed-response frequency to the excitation frequency, the response is either periodic or quasiperiodic.