Nonlinear elastic effects play an important role in the dynamics of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). A Duffing oscillator is widely used as an archetypical model of mechanical resonators with nonlinear elastic behavior. In contrast, nonlinear dissipation effects in micromechanical oscillators are often overlooked. In this work, we consider a doubly clamped micromechanical beam oscillator, which exhibits nonlinearity in both elastic and dissipative properties. The dynamics of the oscillator is measured in both frequency and time domains and compared to theoretical predictions based on a Duffing-like model with nonlinear dissipation. We especially focus on the behavior of the system near bifurcation points. The results show that nonlinear dissipation can have a significant impact on the dynamics of micromechanical systems. To account for the results, we have developed a continuous model of a geometrically nonlinear beamstring with a linear Voigt-Kelvin viscoelastic constitutive law, which shows a relation between linear and nonlinear damping. However, the experimental results suggest that this model alone cannot fully account forall the experimentally observed nonlinear dissipation, and that additional nonlinear dissipative processes exist in our devices.

The nonlinear dynamical behavior of a micromechanical resonator acting as one of the mirrors in an optical resonance cavity is investigated. The mechanical motion is coupled to the optical power circulating inside the cavity both directly through the radiation pressure and indirectly through heating that gives rise to a frequency shift in the mechanical resonance and to thermal deformation. The energy stored in the optical cavity is assumed to follow the mirror displacement without any lag. In contrast, a finite thermal relaxation rate introduces retardation effects into the mechanical equation of motion through temperature dependent terms. Using a combined harmonic balance and averaging technique, slow envelope evolution equations are derived. In the limit of small mechanical vibrations, the micromechanical system can be described as a nonlinear Duffing-like oscillator. Coupling to the optical cavity is shown to introduce corrections to the linear dissipation, the nonlinear dissipation and the nonlinear elastic constants of the micromechanical mirror. The magnitude and the sign of these corrections depend on the exact position of the mirror and on the optical power incident on the cavity. In particular, the effective linear dissipation can become negative, causing self-excited mechanical oscillations to occur as a result of either a subcritical or supercritical Hopf bifurcation. The full slow envelope evolution equations are used to derive the amplitudes and the corresponding oscillation frequencies of different limit cycles, and the bifurcation behavior is analyzed in detail. Finally, the theoretical results are compared to numerical simulations using realistic values of various physical parameters, showing a very good correspondence.

Modifications of the Helmholtz free energy and the stress associated with general constitutive equations of a simple continuum are proposed to model dispersive effects of an inherent material characteristic length. These modifications do not alter the usual restrictions on the unmodified constitutive equations imposed by the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The special case of a thermoelastic compressible Newtonian viscous fluid is considered with attention focused on uniaxial strain. Within this context, the linearized problems of wave propagation in an infinite media and free vibrations of a finite column are considered for the simple case of elastic response. It is shown that the proposed model predicts the dispersive effects observed in wave propagation through a chain of springs and masses as the wavelength decreases. Also, the nonlinear problems of steady wave propagation of a soliton in the absence of viscosity and of a shock wave in the presence of viscosity are discussed. In particular it is shown that the presence of the dispersive terms can cause the stress in a shock wave to overshoot the Hugoniot stress by as much as 50%. This phenomenon may cause an underprediction of the threshold level for failure determined by analysis of stress in shock experiments.

Chaotic behaviour is found for sufficiently long triaxial ellipsoidal non-Brownian particles immersed in steady simple shear flow of a Newtonian fluid in an inertialess approximation. The result is first determined via numerical simulations. An analytic theory explaining the onset of chaotic rotation is then proposed. The chaotic rotation coexists with periodic and quasi-periodic motions. Quasi-periodic motions are depicted by regular closed loops and islands in the system Poincaré map, whereas chaotic rotations form a stochastic layer.

The two-dimensional spatiotemporal dynamics of falling thin liquid films on a solid vertical wall periodically oscillating in its own plane is studied within the framework of long-wave theory. A pertinent nonlinear evolution equation referred to as the temporally modulated Benney equation (TMBE) is derived and its solutions are investigated numerically. The bifurcation diagram of the Benney equation (BE) describing the film dynamics in the unforced regime is computed depicting the domains of linearly stable, linearly unstable bounded, and unbounded behaviors. The solutions obtained for film dynamics via the BE are compared to those documented for direct numerical simulations of the Navier–Stokes equations (NSE). The comparison demonstrates that the BE constitutes an accurate asymptotic reduction of the NSE in the domain preceding the transition to the regime of its unbounded solutions. It is found that periodic planar boundary excitation does not alter the fundamental unforced bifurcation structure and the spatial topological structure of the interfacial waves. The film evolution as described by TMBE is found to be primarily of quasiperiodic tori complemented by several types of strange attractors. In the case of relatively thick films increase of either the amplitude or the frequency of wall oscillation results in significant decrease of the peak-to-peak size of interfacial waves.

The nonlinear equations of motion for a silicon cantilever beam, covered by a piezoelectric lead–zirconate–titanate layer, subjected to a Lennard-Jones type boundary condition, are derived for voltage excitation. The Lagrangian of the system is obtained from the electric enthalpy density, including the virtual work of the Lennard-Jones potential, assuming the beam undergoes only small displacements. By application of Hamilton’s principle, the nonlinear equations of motion are consistently derived and truncated to third order for perturbation analysis. The evolution equations are obtained by the multiple scales method and periodic solutions to the equations of motion are determined and discussed with respect to different tip to sample distances. An analytically obtained frequency response function enables determination of the frequency shift of individually piezoactuated microbeams, which are proposed as fundamental elements of parallel atomic force microscopy, undergoing forced vibration in a dissipative environment.

In this work we study the sensitivity of the primary resonance of an electrically excited microresonator for the possible usage of a temperature sensor. We find a relatively high normalized responsivity factor Rf=|TfdfdT|=0.37 with a quality factor of ∼105. To understand this outcome we perform a theoretical analysis based on experimental observation. We find that the dominant contribution to the responsivity comes from the temperature dependence of the tension in the beam. Subsequently, Rf is found to be inversely proportional to the initial tension. Corresponding to a particular temperature, the tension can be increased by applying a bias voltage.

The motion of a heavy tethered sphere and its wake were measured in a closed loop water channel using a time resolved, high-speed particle image velocimetry technique in a horizontal plane. Measurements were performed for nondimensional reduced velocities ranging from 2.8 to 31.1 that include three bifurcation regions. In order to analyze the vortex shedding characteristics, the directional swirling strength parameter was computed in addition to the vorticity as the former enables vortex identification. In the first bifurcation region, the sphere remained stationary and the wake was characterized by a train of hairpin vortices exhibiting symmetry in the vertical plane similar to visualization results obtained for stationary spheres. The second bifurcation region was characterized by large amplitude periodic oscillations transverse to the flow. Phase-averaged results for the swirling strength showed that although the shedding mechanism was identical for several reduced velocities, the phase at which vortices were shed increased with V R . Spatiotemporal swirling strength characteristics revealed counter-rotating vortex pairs in the far wake of the sphere. In addition to primary vortex pairs, secondary weaker vortical structures were also observed. In the third bifurcation region, nonstationary vortex shedding was characterized by high frequencies associated with shear layer instabilities causing pinch-off of small scale vortices. In addition, large scale undulations of the wake associated with the sphere motion were observed.