Study of the nonlinear longitudinal dynamics of a stochastic system

Abstract

This paper deals with the theoretical study of how discrete elements attached to a continuous stochastic systems can affect their dynamical behavior. For this, it is studied the nonlinear longitudinal dynamics of an elastic bar, attached to springs and a lumped mass, with a random elastic modulus and subjected to a Gaussian white-noise distributed external force. Numerical simulations are conducted and their results are analyzed in function of the ratio between the masses of the discrete and the continuous parts of the system. This analysis reveals that the dynamic behavior of the bar is significantly altered when the lumped mass is varied, being more influenced by the randomness for small values of the lumped mass.