Numerical simulation of the soft contact dynamics of an impacting bilinear oscillator

Systems constituted by moving components that make intermittent contacts with each other can be modelled by a system of ordinary differential equations containing piecewise linear terms. We consider a soft impact bilinear oscillator for which we obtain bifurcation diagrams, Lyapunov coefficients, return maps and phase portraits of the response. Besides Lyapunov coefficients diagrams, bifurcation diagrams are represented in terms of both non-dimensional time instants of contact (when the mass impacts the obstacle) and of portions of contact duration (the percentage-time interval when the material point is inside the obstacle) vs. non-dimensional external force frequency (or amplitude). The second kind of diagrams is needed because the contact duration (or the complementary flight time duration) are quantities that can easily be measured in an experiment aiming at confirming the validity of the present model. Lyapunov coefficients are evaluated converting the piecewise linear system of ordinary differential equations into a map, the so-called impact map, where time and velocity corresponding to a given impact are evaluated as functions of time and velocity corresponding to the previous impact. Thus, the usual methods related to this last map are used. The trajectories are represented in terms of return maps (all points in the time-velocity plane involved in the impact events) and phase portraits (the trajectory itself in the displacement-velocity plane). In the bifurcation diagrams, transition between different responses is evidenced and a perfect correlation between chaotic (periodic) attractors and positive (negative) values of the maximum Lyapunov coefficient is found.