Chaos in Structural Mechanics

This volume introduces new approaches to modeling strongly nonlinear behaviour of structural mechanical units: beams, plates and shells or composite systems. The text draws on bifurcation theory and chaos, emphasizing control and stability of objects and systems. This volume introduces and reviews novel theoretical approaches to modeling strongly nonlinear behaviour of either individual or interacting structural mechanical units such as beams, plates and shells or composite systems thereof. The approach draws upon the well-established fields of bifurcation theory and chaos and emphasizes the notion of control and stability of objects and systems the evolution of which is governed by nonlinear ordinary and partial differential equations. Computational methods, in particular the Bubnov-Galerkin method, are thus described in detail. This monograph is devoted to construction of novel theoretical approaches of m- eling non-homogeneous structural members as well as to development of new and economically ef?cient (simultaneously keeping the required high engineering ac- racy)computationalalgorithmsofnonlineardynamics(statics)ofstronglynonlinear behavior of either purely continuous mechanical objects (beams, plates, shells) or hybrid continuous/lumped interacting mechanical systems. In general, the results presented in this monograph cannot be found in the - isting literature even with the published papers of the authors and their coauthors. We take a challenging and originally developed approach based on the integrated mathematical-numerical treatment of various continuous and lumped/continuous mechanical structural members, putting emphasis on mathematical and physical modeling as well as on the carefully prepared and applied novel numerical - gorithms used to solve the derived nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) mainly via Bubnov-Galerkin type approaches. The presented material draws on the ?elds of bifurcation, chaos, control, and s- bility of the objects governed by strongly nonlinear PDEs and ordinary differential equations (ODEs),and may have a positive impact on interdisciplinary ? elds of n- linear mechanics, physics, and applied mathematics. We show, for the ?rst time in a book, the complexity and fascinating nonlinear behavior of continual mechanical objects, which cannot be found in widely reported bifurcational and chaotic dyn- ics of lumped mechanical systems, i. e. , those governed by nonlinear ODEs.