Chaotic Behavior of a Symmetric Laminate With Transient Thermal Field

Abstract

A symmetric isotropic laminate in a simply supported boundary condition is analyzed for its nonlinear dynamic response subjected to a nonuniform transient thermal field. The equation of motion of a modified Duffing type in a decoupled modal form is obtained for both orthotropic and isotropic symmetric laminate from the reduction of the governing equation of motion by using a Galerkin-type method. Thermally induced nonlinear response and thermal mechanically induced response are investigated in a multimode analysis. The influence of the transient thermal field is found to cause drastically different modal response from that due to the steady-state thermal field. Chaos is found being induced by the transient in-plane thermal field, or by both transient in-plane and transverse thermal fields. Unique bifurcation behavior is observed with different thermal frequencies. Different loading levels can cause transition between chaos and quasi-periodic oscillations.