Wake-induced dynamics of soft-impact oscillators: Analysis and electronic experimental validation
Abstract
This article presents an electronic experimental validation of discontinuity-induced bifurcations, including period-adding cascades, in a wake-induced dynamical system subjected to soft impacts. A cylindrical structure immersed in a cross-flow undergoes vortex-induced vibrations and interacts with a movable barrier during the upper and lower branches of the response. The structural motion is modelled as a harmonic oscillator, while the fluctuating lift is represented by a Van der Pol oscillator. The soft contact interaction between the structure and the movable barrier is modelled using a bilinear restoring force, resulting in a piecewise-smooth wake-oscillator system. A systematic numerical investigation reveals period-adding cascades of periodic orbits interspersed with chaotic responses as the barrier distance and fluid-flow velocity are varied. The results are experimentally validated using an inductorless electronic analogue of the piecewise-smooth wake model constructed from operational amplifiers and implemented on a printed-circuit board to improve experimental robustness. The route to instability of the periodic and aperiodic responses is further characterized using Floquet multipliers and Lyapunov exponents. A zero-time transverse discontinuity mapping is implemented to account for the evolution of perturbations in the local neighborhood of the discontinuity boundary during stability analysis. The combined numerical, experimental, and stability analyses demonstrate the role of soft impacts in generating complex nonlinear responses in the wake-induced system.
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BibTeX
@misc{chawla2026wakeinduced,
title = {{Wake-induced dynamics of soft-impact oscillators: Analysis and electronic experimental validation}},
author = {Rohit Chawla and Soumyajit Seth and Vikram Pakrashi},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.14718},
eprint = {2610.14718},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14718},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Wake-induced dynamics of soft-impact oscillators: Analysis and electronic experimental validation
AU - Rohit Chawla
AU - Soumyajit Seth
AU - Vikram Pakrashi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/10
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.14718
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14718
AB - This article presents an electronic experimental validation of discontinuity-induced bifurcations, including period-adding cascades, in a wake-induced dynamical system subjected to soft impacts. A cylindrical structure immersed in a cross-flow undergoes vortex-induced vibrations and interacts with a movable barrier during the upper and lower branches of the response. The structural motion is modelled as a harmonic oscillator, while the fluctuating lift is represented by a Van der Pol oscillator. The soft contact interaction between the structure and the movable barrier is modelled using a bilinear restoring force, resulting in a piecewise-smooth wake-oscillator system. A systematic numerical investigation reveals period-adding cascades of periodic orbits interspersed with chaotic responses as the barrier distance and fluid-flow velocity are varied. The results are experimentally validated using an inductorless electronic analogue of the piecewise-smooth wake model constructed from operational amplifiers and implemented on a printed-circuit board to improve experimental robustness. The route to instability of the periodic and aperiodic responses is further characterized using Floquet multipliers and Lyapunov exponents. A zero-time transverse discontinuity mapping is implemented to account for the evolution of perturbations in the local neighborhood of the discontinuity boundary during stability analysis. The combined numerical, experimental, and stability analyses demonstrate the role of soft impacts in generating complex nonlinear responses in the wake-induced system.
ER -