Bifurcations of Periodic Orbits of a One-Dimensional Pre-Compressed Granular Array

Abstract

Bifurcations of periodic orbits of a one-dimensional granular array are numerically investigated in this study. A conservative two-bead system is considered without any damping or external forces. By using the Hertzian contact model, and confining the system’s total energy to a certain level, changes in in-phase periodic orbit are studied for various pre-compression levels. At a certain pre-compression level, symmetry breaking and period doubling occur, and an asymmetric period-two orbit emerges from the in-phase periodic orbit. Floquet analysis is conducted to study the stability of the in-phase periodic solution, and to detect the bifurcation location. Although the trajectory of period-two orbit is close to the in-phase orbit at the bifurcation point, the asymmetry of the period-two orbit becomes more pronounced as one moves away from the bifurcation point. This work is meant to serve as an initial step towards understanding how pre-compression may introduce qualitative changes in system dynamics of granular media.