Experimental investigation of an oscillator with discontinuous support considering different system aspects

Non-smooth characteristics are, in general, the source of difficulties for the modeling and simulation of natural systems. These characteristics are usually related to either the friction phenomenon or the discontinuous behavior as intermittent contacts. This article develops an experimental investigation concerning non-smooth systems with discontinuous support. An experimental apparatus is developed in order to analyze the nonlinear dynamics of a single-degree of freedom system with discontinuous support. The apparatus is composed by an oscillator constructed by a car, free to move over a rail, connected to an excitation system. The discontinuous support is constructed considering mass–spring systems separated by a gap to the car position. This apparatus is instrumented to obtain all the system state variables. System dynamical behavior shows a rich response, presenting dynamical jumps, bifurcations and chaos. Different configurations of the experimental set up are treated in order to evaluate the influence of the internal impact within the car and also support characteristics in the system dynamics.