Multimode bifurcations of elastic equilibria (Q2638855)

Conservative elastic systems with parallelepiped symmetry are considered, for which a study of the postcritical equilibria reduces (by the Lyapunov-Schmidt method) to the analysis of extremals of functions of the form \(W(x_ 1,...,x_ n,\lambda)=\sum \alpha_ j(\lambda)x^ 2_ j+\sum h_{i,j}x^ 2_ ix^ 2_ j+...\), where \(H=(h_{i,j})\) is a symmetric matrix with non-degenerate principle (diagonal) minors. A relationship is written down for which the matrix H is determined by Ritz approximations of the total energy functional constructed by means of the fundamental bifurcation modes. In the case of soft buckling and for ind H\(=0\) or n-1 (ind is the number of negative eigenvalues taking multiplicity into account) all the allowable types and quantities of bifurcating stable equilibriums are listed. It is shown that after soft buckling with breaking of symmetry, cascade bifurcations are possible (cascade bifurcations simulate the postcritical series of snappings accompanied by a drop in the load). Two known examples of soft buckling and one new example of hard buckling are presented for illustration.