Impact response and the influence of friction

Non-smooth stiffness and damping characteristics are commonly encountered in mechanical systems. The specific physical contacts considered in this paper are impact and friction. Although these individual effects have been the subject of quite intensive research it is their interaction and influence on the dynamic behavior of a mechanical oscillatory system that is the subject of the current work. Dynamical systems theory is used as a conceptual framework and comparisons are made between numerical and experimental results over a relatively wide range of parameters. (C) 1998 Academic Press Limited.