Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 18 (2003) 345–353

www.elsevier.com/locate/chaos

Active control with delay of vibration and chaos

in a double-well Duffing oscillator
B.R. Nana Nbendjo, R. Tchoukuegno, P. Woafo *

Laboratoire de m

ecanique, Facult

e des sciences, Universit

e de Yaound

e I, B.P 812 Yaound

e, Cameroun
Accepted 2 January 2003

Abstract
This paper deals with the active control of vibration, snap-through instability and horseshoes chaos in a bistable
Duffing oscillator. We determine the range of control parameters which leads to a good control. The effect of time-delay
between the detection of vibration and action of the control is particularly investigated.
Ó 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

In recent years, considerable efforts have been devoted to the control of linear and nonlinear vibrating structures.
Among the control strategies, the active control plays a particular role [1–7]. Ref. [1] gives a thorough review of the
description and main results of the active control. In Ref. [2], the authors showed that time-delay can lead to the
instability of the control process in linear structures. While the Refs. [3,4] considered the behaviour of the catastrophic
single well Duffing oscillator under active control, Refs. [5,6] extended the study to a Duffing oscillator with a quintic
nonlinear term leading to various configurations of the potential including a catastrophic single well potential, a catas-
trophic double-well potential and a tristable noncatastrophic potential. In Ref. [7], the authors considered the control of
nonlinear oscillations of buckled beams by applying concentrated moments at suitable points and using a nonlinear
optimal control method. The main results are that the control scheme mitigates the effects of the dynamic loading on the
vibration amplitude and prevent dangerous instability phenomena, with a load-carrying capacity of buckled beams
increasing with the degree of nonlinearity of the control force. The studies of Refs. [3–7], which considered nonlinear
structures, did not take into account the effects of the inevitable time-delay between the detection of the structureÕs
motion and the restoring action of the control. However, as quoted here before, Ref. [2] considered such a problem in
linear structures and showed that time-delay can even lead to the instability of the whole structure. Thus, it is of interest
to analyze the same problem for structures with nonlinear dynamics. This is one of the aims of this paper. The nonlinear
model considered is the Duffing oscillator with two wells. The interest devoted to this model is due to the following facts.
Firstly, to our knowledge, the recent studies of active control have not considered it. The control strategy always applied
to this model is the parametric control [8,9]. Secondly, this bistable model describes many situations in physical and
mechanical sciences. In particular, it describes the dynamics of the fundamental mode of a buckled beam undergoing
forced lateral vibrations in the situation where the axial compressive load is greater than the first EulerÕs load [10–12].
The organisation of the paper is as follows. In Section 2, the model is presented and the effects of the control on the
harmonic vibrations and snap-through instability of the structure are considered. Section 3 deals with the problem of
inhibition of Smale-horseshoe chaos in the model. Particular emphasis will be paid to the effects of the time-delay.
Concluding remarks come in the last section.

*
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: pwoafo@uycdc.uninet.cm, pwoafo1@yahoo.fr (P. Woafo).

0960-0779/03/$ - see front matter Ó 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0960-0779(02)00681-1
346 B.R. Nana Nbendjo et al. / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 18 (2003) 345–353

2. Model, control of harmonic vibrations and snap-through instability

2.1. The model

The double-well Duffing oscillator subjected to the action of an external additive harmonic excitation is described by
the following equations
dV ðxÞ
€x þ k_x þ ¼ f0 cosðxtÞ; ð1Þ
dx
where k is the damping coefficient, f0 and x are the amplitude and frequency of the external excitation. The potential
V ðxÞ is given by
1 1
V ðxÞ ¼ ax2 þ cx4 : ð2Þ
2 4
This equation well describes the dynamics of the amplitude of the fundamental mode of an Euler beam with simple
supported ends [10–12]. When the axial load is greater than the first EulerÕs load, the coefficient a is negative while c is
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
positive. In this case, the structure presents two degenerate stable states xs ¼  a=c and two homoclinic orbits
connecting the unstable point x ¼ 0 to itself. Then, under the action of a sinusoidal load, the beam undergoes various
types of motion including strange attractor and multiple stability around the degenerate states [10–13]. Because snap-
through instability and chaos can occur in the structure when the external parameters f0 and x vary, it is desirable to
add to the structure, a controlling device. We use here an active piezo-electric controller [1,14] or a structural tendon
control [2]. In this case, it can be shown that the amplitude of the fundamental mode of the beam under control is
described by the following set of equations
€xðtÞ þ k_xðtÞ þ axðtÞ þ cx3 ðtÞ  czðtÞ ¼ f0 cosðxtÞ; ð3aÞ
z_ ðtÞ þ azðtÞ ¼ axðt  tx Þ; ð3bÞ

where z is the control force variable, a the control speed parameter, c the control gain parameter and tx the time-delay
(see Refs. [2,14]. In considering Ref. [14], we assume that the passive inductance can be neglected). In the rest of the
paper we use a ¼ 1, c ¼ 0:5, k ¼ 0:2 and x ¼ 1.

2.2. Control of vibrations and snap-through instability

To determine the amplitude of harmonic vibration of the system under control, we use the harmonic balance
method. In this spirit, we set
x ¼ A0 þ A cosðxt þ uÞ: ð4Þ

Inserting this expression in Eq. (3) and equating the constants and the coefficients of sin xt and cos xt, we find that the
amplitude A and the component A0 obey the following nonlinear algebraic equations
 
225 2 6 15 4 2 ac
c A þ cA x þ 2a  3c þ 2 ða cos xtx  x sin xt x Þ
16 2 a þ x2
( 2  2 )
2 2 ac ac
þA x þ 2a  3c þ 2 ða cos xtx  x sin xtx Þ þ kx þ 2 ðx cos xtx þ a sin xtx Þ  f02 ¼ 0
a þ x2 a þ x2
ð5aÞ
and
 1=2
c  a  32 cA2
A0 ¼  : ð5bÞ
c
To determine analytically the domain in the parameters space where the control of amplitude is efficient, we proceed as
follows. In the boundary of such a domain, the amplitude of the controlled system ðAc Þ is equal to that of the un-
controlled system ðAuc Þ:
Ac ¼ Auc ; ð6Þ

where Ac satisfies Eq. (5a) and Auc satisfies the same equation but with c ¼ 0. With this condition, we find that at the
boundary, both Auc and Ac equal to
 B.R. Nana Nbendjo et al. / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 18 (2003) 345–353 347

Fig. 1. Boundary criterion for the effectiveness of the control of amplitude in the (c, f0 ) plane for a ¼ 1.

 1=2
2
Ab ¼ ½nðn  2x2  4aÞ þ gðg þ 2kxÞ ; ð7Þ
15cn

where
ac
n ¼ 3c  ða cosðxtx Þ  x sinðxtx ÞÞ;
a2 þ x2
ac
g¼ ðx sinðxtx Þ þ a sinðxtx ÞÞ:
a2 þ x2
Inserting Eq. (7) in Eq. (5a), the boundary separating the domain where the control is efficient (reduction of the am-
plitude of vibration) to the domain where it is not efficient is given by
225 2 6 15 4 2
f02 ¼ c Ab þ cAb ðx þ 2aÞ þ A2b ððx2 þ 2aÞ2 þ k2 x2 Þ: ð8Þ
16 2
In Fig. 1, we have plotted this boundary in the ðc; f0 Þ plane when tx ¼ 0. This critical value of f0 increases with c. The
domain located below the curve is where the control is efficient in reducing the amplitude of vibration.
One of the interesting phenomena which occur in a double-well system is its escape from the motion around its
equilibrium state xs or xs to a large amplitude motion. Called the snap-trough instability in the context of mechanical
structures, it corresponds to a change of sign of the structure curvature, thus leading to its inversion or overturning and
is dangerous. It is thus of interest to know how the control parameters affect the critical value of the load f0 for such a
phenomena to take place. Analytically, the critical value of f0 can be computed from the fact that snap-trough in-
stability occurs when the structure, initially at xs or xs , crosses the potential barrier at x ¼ 0. Thus from Eq. (5), the
critical value f0cs is obtained by replacing in Eq. (5a), A2 by
2ðc  aÞ
A2 ¼ :
5c
The variations of f0cs versus c and tx are reported in Fig. 2 along with the results of a direct numerical simulation of
Eq. (3) using the fourth-order Runge–Kutta algorithm. f0cs is an increasing function of c and a periodic function of tx .
Thus, we find that with a good choice of time-delay, a better protection of the structure from overturning can be
obtained. However for some values of time-delay, the control is affected in the bad direction.

3. Control of Melnikov chaos

In Ref. [10], Holmes used the Melnikov theory [15] to derive in the parameters space the condition for the occurrence
of horseshoe chaos in the bistable system studied in this paper. Later on, the condition of the parametric suppression of
348 B.R. Nana Nbendjo et al. / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 18 (2003) 345–353

(a)

(b)

Fig. 2. Critical forcing amplitude f0cs for the snap-through instability as a function of c (a) with tx ¼ 0 and time-delay (b) with c ¼ 1.
The squares of (a) stand for the results of the numerical simulation of Eq. (3).

this type of chaos was established in Refs. [8,9]. In fact, the Melnikov theory defines the condition for the appearance of
the so-called transverse intersection points between the perturbed and the unperturbed separatrices or the appearance of
the fractality on the basin of attraction. Our interest here is to find how the parameters and the time-delay of the active
control strategy affect the Melnikov condition for chaos or in what range of the control parameters and time-delay, the
Melnikov or Smale-horseshoe chaos could be inhibited in the bistable system. To deal with such a problem, let us
express, the system of Eq. (3) in the form
dU
¼ F ðU Þ þ GðU ; tÞ; ð9Þ
dt
where U ðx; v ¼ x_ ; zÞ is the state vector of the system at time t. F is the nonlinear vector field given by
F ¼ ½v; axðtÞ  cx3 ðtÞ; azðtÞ þ axðt  tx Þ;

and GðU ; tÞ is the perturbation vector given by

G ¼ ð0; kvðtÞ þ czðtÞ þ f0 cos xt; 0Þ:

The hamiltonian part of Eq. (9) (the term GðU ; tÞ discarded) possesses two homoclinic orbits U0 ðtÞ connecting the
unstable point x ¼ 0 of the potential to itself. These orbits are given by the following components
 B.R. Nana Nbendjo et al. / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 18 (2003) 345–353 349
 1=2
2a pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
x0 ¼  sec hð atÞ; ð10aÞ
c
 2 1=2
2a pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
v0 ¼
sec hð atÞ tan hð atÞ; ð10bÞ
c

and
 1=2 Z t
2a pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
z0 ¼ a expðatÞ expðasÞ sec hð aðs  tx ÞÞ ds: ð10cÞ
c 1

The Melnikov function is defined by

Z þ1
Mðt0 Þ ¼ F ½U0 ðtÞ  G½U0 ðtÞ; t þ t0  dt; ð11Þ
1

where t0 is a phase angle. Carrying out the integration, we find that

 1=2  
4kðaÞ3=2 2 px
Mðt0 Þ ¼ þ pxf0 sec h pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi sinðxt0 Þ  ckða; tx Þ ð12Þ
3c c 2 a

with
Z
Z
2acðaÞ3=2 þ1
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi þ1 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 
kða; tx Þ ¼ expðatÞ sec hð atÞ tan hð atÞ expð  asÞ sec h aðs  tx Þ ds dt: ð13Þ
c 1 1

Using the Melnikov criterion for the appearance of the intersection between the perturbed and the unperturbed
separatrices [15], it comes that chaos is suppressed when
4kðaÞ3=2
 ckða; tx Þ
f0 6 f0cm ¼ 3c ð14Þ
 1=2  ;
2 px
px sec h pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
c 2 a

where the negative sign corresponds to the case of the left homoclinic orbit at x ¼ xs and the positive sign for the right
homoclinic orbit at x ¼ xs . From Eq. (14), we can discuss about the effects of the control parameter and that of the
delay-time on f0cm .
Let us first consider the effects of the control gain parameter c. f0cm is proportional to c with a positive sign for
motions inside the right homoclinic orbit and negative sign for the left homoclinic orbit. Thus for motions around
x ¼ xs , the fractality of the basin of attraction appears for greater values of f0 when c > 0 as compared to the case where
there is no control. Thus here, control is more effective when c > 0 while for c < 0, the control has a negative effect since
chaos appears for lower values of f0 . The opposite happens for the motion around x ¼ xs .
As concerns the effects of the control speed parameter a and that of the time-delay tx , they are included in the
function kða; tx Þ. Thus we need the evaluation of this quantity as a and tx vary. For this aim, some mathematical
transformations lead to
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi Z
Z w
8a1 a 1
kða; tx Þ ¼ f1 ðw; aÞ f2 ðp; aÞ dp dw ð15Þ
c 0 0

with
 a=pffiffiffiffi
a  a=pffiffiffiffi
a
w p
ð2w  1Þ
w1 p1
f1 ðw; aÞ ¼ and f2 ðp; aÞ ¼ ;
ð2w2  2w þ 1Þ2 12 p2 þ ðp  1Þ2
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
where 1 ¼ expð atx Þ. Then we can numerically compute the variations of kða; tx Þ. Fig. 3(a) shows the variation of
Kða; tx Þ versus a for tx ¼ 0. It increases with a until an asymptotic constant value. This implies that for motion in the
well x ¼ xs , f0cm increases with a until a limiting value. Consequently, the control becomes more and more efficient when
a increases until a stationary degree which can not change by increasing a further. The opposite happens for the other
side of the potential. Fig. 3(b), which reports the variations of kða; tx Þ as tx varies for a ¼ 1; shows that kða; tx Þ decreases
350 B.R. Nana Nbendjo et al. / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 18 (2003) 345–353

(a)

(b)

Fig. 3. (a) Evolution of kða; tx Þ with tx ¼ 0. (b) Evolution of Kða; tx Þ with a ¼ 1.

when tx increases. Consequently when the motion is around x ¼ xs , the control becomes less and less efficient when the
time-delay increases. Again, the opposite happens for motions around x ¼ xs .
To complement and validate the analytical predictions, we have simulated numerically the system of Eq. (3) to look
for the effects of the control parameters and time-delay on the onset of the fractality in the basins of attraction.
Considering first the case of the system without control, the fractality begins to appear at f0 ¼ 0:25 and becomes
more and more visible as f0 increases. The corresponding value predicted by the Melnikov boundary (see Eq. (14)) is
f0 ¼ 0:21. Fig. 4 shows a typical fractal basin boundary for the motion around x ¼ xs . Let us indicate that the plane (x0 ,
v0 ) is that of initial conditions.
Now taking into account the presence of the control, we begin by considering only the effects of c on the criti-
cal value f0cm (we set tx ¼ 0). Fig. 5(a) shows that with the same parameters as in Fig. 4, the fractality at f0 ¼ 0:25
disappears when the control is added to the system and this is accompanied by an enlargement of the basin of at-
traction. By varying f0 , the fractality reappears only when f0 P 0:67. Turning our interest on the effects of the time-
delay, we find that the fractality appears more earlier. For instance, with tx ¼ 2, the fractality appears for f0 P 0:47 (see
Fig. 6).
 B.R. Nana Nbendjo et al. / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 18 (2003) 345–353 351

Fig. 4. A fractal basin boundary diagram for the uncontrolled system with f0 ¼ 0:25.

(a) (b)

(c)

Fig. 5. Evolution of the basin of attraction as f0 increases for the controlled system with a ¼ 1, c ¼ 0:5 and tx ¼ 0 and (a) f0 ¼ 0:25, (b)
f0 ¼ 0:64 and (c) f0 ¼ 0:67.
352 B.R. Nana Nbendjo et al. / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 18 (2003) 345–353

Fig. 6. Early appearance of the fractal behavior because of time-delay (a ¼ 1, c ¼ 0:5, tx ¼ 2 and f0 ¼ 0:47).

4. Conclusion

This paper has dealt with the control of vibration, snap-through instability and horseshoe chaos in a double-well
Duffing oscillator submitted to an external additive and periodic excitation. The effects of the control parameters as well
as that of the time-delay between the motion of the oscillator and the action of the control have been considered. The
main conclusion is that the best estimation of the optimal parameters for the efficiency of the control should not neglect
the effects of time-delay.

Acknowledgements

Part of this work was done during the associateship visit of P. Woafo to Abdus Salam International Centre for
Theorectical Physics. He would like to thank ICTP for the hospitality and facilities and the Sweedish Agency for
Research and Cooperation for finance support.

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