Discontinuous Bifurcations in Stick-Slip Mechanical Systems

Non-smooth dynamical systems exhibit continuous and discontinuous bifurcations. Continuous bifurcations are well understood and described in many textbooks, whereas discontinuous bifurcations are still the object of active research. Grazing bifurcations, C-bifurcations and other types of bifurcations characterised by jumps of the relevant Floquet multipliers have been described in the scientific literature. This paper deals with two discontinuous bifurcations found in mechanical systems affected by dry friction.