Bifurcations and Crises in a Shape Memory Oscillator

Abstract

The remarkable properties of shape memory alloys have been motivating the interest in applications in different areas varying from biomedical to aerospace hardware. The dynamical response of systems composed by shape memory actuators presents nonlinear characteristics and a very rich behavior, showing periodic, quasi-periodic and chaotic responses. This contribution analyses some aspects related to bifurcation phenomenon in a shape memory oscillator where the restitution force is described by a polynomial constitutive model. The term bifurcation is used to describe qualitative changes that occur in the orbit structure of a system, as a consequence of parameter changes, being related to chaos. Numerical simulations show that the response of the shape memory oscillator presents period doubling cascades, direct and reverse, and crises.