Towards chaos in vibrating damaged structures - Part II: Parametrical investigation

The aim of the present paper is to evaluate the complex oscillatory behavior i.e., the transition to chaos, in damaged nonlinear structures under excitation. In the present paper Part II, we apply the theoretical approach described in Part I to perform an extensive parametrical investigation. We focus our attention on a cantilevered beam with several breathing cracks subjected to sinusoidal excitation. The numerical simulations have been performed by varying the number of cracks, their depth and position, as well as the amplitude, frequency and position of the excitation, for a total of 83 different cases.