Heteroclinic Bifurcations and Invariant Manifolds in Rocking Block Dynamics

Abstract

Abstract A simple model of rigid block motion under the influence of external perturbations is discussed. For periodic forcings we prove the existence of Smale horseshoe chaos in the dynamics. For slender blocks a heteroclinic bifurcation condition is calculated exactly, i.e. without using perturbation methods. That means that our results are valid for arbitrary excitation amplitudes. Furthermore, analytical formulas for the first pieces of the stable and unstable manifolds are derived not only for periodically but also for transiently driven systems. In the case of small excitation and damping the Melnikov method is used to treat the full nonlinear problem