Multipulse Homoclinic Orbits and Chaotic Dynamics of a Reinforced Composite Plate with Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

The multipulse homoclinic orbits and chaotic dynamics of a reinforced composite plate with the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) under combined in-plane and transverse excitations are studied in the case of 1 : 1 internal resonance. The method of multiple scales is adopted to derive the averaged equations. From the averaged equations, the normal form theory is applied to reduce the equations to a simpler normal form associated with a double zero and a pair of pure imaginary eigenvalues. The energy-phase method proposed by Haller and Wiggins is utilized to examine the global bifurcations and chaotic dynamics of the CNT-reinforced composite plate. The analytical results demonstrate that the multipulse Shilnikov-type homoclinic orbits and chaotic motions exist in the system. Homoclinic trees are constructed to illustrate the repeated bifurcations of multipulse solutions. In order to verify the theoretical results, numerical simulations are given to show the multipulse Shilnikov-type chaotic motions in the CNT-reinforced composite plate. The results obtained here imply that the motion is chaotic in the sense of the Smale horseshoes for the CNT-reinforced composite plate.