Influence of initial conditions on the postcritical behavior of a nonlinear aeroelastic system (Q1129601)

We study the behavior of a nonlinear, non-Hamiltonian system in the postcritical (flutter) domain with special attention to the influence of initial conditions on the properties of attractors situated at a certain point of the control parameter space. As a prototype system, we consider an elastic panel subjected to a combination of supersonic gas flow and quasistatic loading in the middle surface. A two-natural-modes approximation in the four-dimensional phase space and with several control parameters is examined in detail. For two fixed points in the control parameter space, we present plane sections of the four-dimensional space of initial conditions and describe the asymptotic chaotic behavior of the final stationary responses.