Global bifurcations and chaotic dynamics for a string-beam coupled system (Q2425499)

The authors investigate global bifurcations and chaotic dynamics of a string-beam coupled system subjected to parametric and external excitations. A Galerkin procedure is applied to the derived equations of nonlinear transverse vibrations of this system to simplify them to ordinary differential equations with two degrees of freedom, with subsequent perturbation analysis using the method of multiple scales. The authors consider the 1:2 internal resonance between the modes of the beam and the string, the principal parametric resonance for the beam, and primary resonance for the string. By using an improved adjoint operator method and the relevant Maple program from [\textit{W. Zhang, F. X. Wang} and \textit{J. W. Zu}, J. Sound Vibr. 278, 949--974 (2004)], normal form of the averaged equation is obtained associated with one double zero and a pair of pure imaginary eigenvalues. The analysis of global bifurcations and the higher-dimensional Mel'nikov theory indicate the existence of homoclinic bifurcations and Shil'nikov-type single-pulse homoclinic orbits for the averaged equation of the string-beam coupled system. The obtained results demonstrate that the chaotic motions can occur in this system. Numerical simulations are given by using phase portrait and Poincaré map to verify the analytic predictions.