BIFURCATION BEHAVIOR AND WAVE SLAMMING FORCE ON A COMPLIANT HORIZONTAL CYLINDER

The effect of a horizontal wave slamming force on the dynamic behaviou r of a horizontal compliant cylinder is studied from the point of view of bifurcation analysis. It is found that, even though the time histo ry responses of the system may change significantly, the patterns of b ifurcations are not very sensitive to the slamming force. Therefore, t he parameter ranges for the bifurcations can be reasonably determined without a complete knowledge of the exact values of the parameters. An understanding of the bifurcation behaviour of the system may have imp ortant practical relevance, e.g. in forecasting the possible parameter ranges in which the nonlinear system can be approximated by an equiva lent linear system. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.