Free vibration in a class of self-excited oscillators with 1:3 internal resonance

Free vibration of a two degree of freedom weakly nonlinear oscillator is investigated. The type of nonlinearity considered is symmetric, it involves displacement as well as velocity terms and gives rise to self-excited oscillations in many engineering applications. After presenting the equations of motion in a general form, a perturbation methodology is applied for the case of 1:3 internal resonance. This yields a set of four slow-flow nonlinear equations, governing the amplitudes and phases of approximate motions of the system. It is then shown that these equations possess three distinct types of solutions, corresponding to trivial, single-mode and mixed-mode response of the system. The stability analysis of all these solutions is also performed. Next, numerical results are presented by applying this analysis to a specific practical example. Response diagrams are obtained for various combinations of the system parameters, in an effort to provide a complete picture of the dynamics and understand the transition from conditions of 1:3 internal resonance to non-resonant response. Emphasis is placed on identifying the effect of the linear damping, the frequency detuning and the stiffness nonlinearity parameters. Finally, the predictions of the approximate analysis are confirmed and extended further by direct integration of the averaged equations. This reveals the existence of other regular and irregular motions and illustrates the transition from phase-locked to drift response, which takes place through a Hopf bifurcation and a homoclinic explosion of the averaged equations.