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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Weicheng Huang
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2024 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.A snap-through bifurcation occurs when a bistable structure loses one of its stable states and moves rapidly to the remaining state. For example, a buckled arch with symmetrically clamped ends can snap between an inverted and a natural state as the ends are released. A standard linear stability analysis suggests that the arch becomes unstable to asymmetric perturbations. Surprisingly, our experiments show that this is not always the case: symmetric transitions are also observed. Using experiments, numerics, and a toy model, we show that the symmetry of the transition depends on the rate at which the ends are released, with sufficiently fast loading leading to symmetric snap-through. Our toy model reveals that this behavior is caused by a region of the system's state space in which any initial asymmetry is amplified. The system may not enter this region when loaded fast (hence remaining symmetric), but will traverse it for some interval of time when loaded slowly, causing a transient amplification of asymmetry. Our toy model suggests that this behavior is not unique to snapping arches, but rather can be observed in dynamical systems where both a saddle-node and a pitchfork bifurcation occur in close proximity.
Author(s): Wang Q, Giudici A, Huang W, Wang Y, Liu M, Tawfick S, Vella D
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Physical Review Letters
Year: 2024
Volume: 132
Issue: 26
Online publication date: 28/06/2024
Acceptance date: 23/05/2024
Date deposited: 23/07/2024
ISSN (print): 0031-9007
ISSN (electronic): 1079-7114
Publisher: American Physical Society
URL: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.267201
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.267201
PubMed id: 38996296
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