Mechanisms of Taming Chaos in Stick-slip Vibrations of Forced-self-excited Mechanical Systems with Dry Friction

Abstract

This study evaluates the effects of weak harmonic perturbations applied to a mechanical system with dry sliding parts that exhibits both chaotic and periodic stick-slip vibrations. A previously published model of such a system was tested in numerical simulations. Since the trajectories of the stick-slip vibrations in the system include removal discontinuities, we use a technique based on the Poincaré map for analysis. This analysis reveals that weak harmonic perturbations induce a shift of the bifurcation points in agreement with several previous studies, which suggests a mechanism for taming the chaotic behavior of the system. Our results indicate that taming the chaotic behavior in mechanical systems with discontinuities can be addressed with weak harmonic perturbations.