- Author
- Franaszek, M. | Simiu, E.
- Title
- Noise-Induced Snap-Through of a Buckled Column With Continuously Distributed Mass: A Chaotic Dynamics Approach.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Journal
- International Journal of Non-Linear Mechanics, Vol. 31, No. 6, 861-869, 1996
- Sponsor
- Office of Naval Research, Washington, DC
- Contract
- N00014-94-0028
- Keywords
- noise (sound) | columns | chaotic dynamics approach equations | equations
- Abstract
- For a spatially-extended dynamical system we illustrate the use of a chaotic dynamics approach to obtain criteria on the occurrence of noise-induced escapes from a preferred region of phase space. Our system is a buckled column with continuous mass, subjected to a transverse continuously distributed load that varies randomly with time. We obtain a stochastic counterpart of the Melnikov necessary condition for chaos - and snap-through - derived by Holmes and Mardsen for the harmonic loading case. Our approach yields a lower bound for the probability that snap-through cannot occur during a specified time interval. In particular, for excitation with finite-tailed marginal distribution, a simple criterion is obtained that guarantees the non-occurrence of snap-through.