Behavior of a Self-Sustained Electromechanical Transducer and Routes to Chaos

This paper studies the dynamics of a self-sustained electromechanical transducer. The stability of fixed points in the linear response is examined. Their local bifurcations are investigated and different types of bifurcation likely to occur are found. Conditions for the occurrence of Hopf bifurcations are derived. Harmonic oscillatory solutions are obtained in both nonresonant and resonant cases. Their stability is analyzed in the resonant case. Various bifurcation diagrams associated to the largest one-dimensional (1-D) numerical Lyapunov exponent are obtained, and it is found that chaos can appear suddenly, through period doubling, period adding, or torus breakdown. The extreme sensitivity of the electromechanical system to both initial conditions and tiny variations of the coupling coefficients is also outlined. The experimental study of̱the electromechanical system is carried out. An appropriate electronic circuit (analog simulator) is proposed for the investigation of the dynamical behavior of the electromechanical system. Correspondences are established between the coefficients of the electromechanical system model and the components of the electronic circuit. Harmonic oscillatory solutions and phase portraits are obtained experimentally. One of the most important contributions of this work is to provide a set of reliable analytical expressions (formulas) describing the electromechanical system behavior. These formulas are of great importance for design engineers as they can be used to predict the states of the electromechanical systems and respectively to avoid their destruction. The reliability of the analytical formulas is demonstrated by the very good agreement with the results obtained by both the numeric and the experimental analysis.