Intrinsic Localized Modes of Harmonic Oscillations in Nonlinear Oscillator Arrays

Intrinsic localized modes (ILMs) are investigated in an array with N Duffing oscillators that are weakly coupled with each other when each oscillator is subjected to sinusoidal excitation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the behavior of ILMs in nonlinear multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) systems. In the theoretical analysis, van der Pol's method is employed to determine the expressions for the frequency response curves for fundamental harmonic oscillations. In the numerical calculations, the frequency response curves are shown for N = 2 and 3 and compared with the results of the numerical simulations. Basins of attraction are shown for a two-oscillator array with hard-type nonlinearities to examine the possibility of appearance of ILMs when an oscillator is disturbed. The influences of the connecting springs for both hard- and soft-type nonlinearities on the appearance of the ILMs are examined. Increasing the values of the connecting spring constants may cause Hopf bifurcation followed by amplitude modulated motion (AMM) including chaotic vibrations. The influence of the imperfection of an oscillator is also investigated. Bifurcation sets are calculated to show the influence of the system parameters on the excitation frequency range of ILMs. Furthermore, time histories are shown for the case of N = 10, and many patterns of ILMs may appear depending on the initial conditions.