Technical problems often lead to differential equations with piecewise-smooth right-hand sides. Problems in mechanical engineering, for instance, violate the requirements of smoothness if they involve collisions, finite clearances, or stick-slip phenomena. Systems of this type can display a large variety of complicated bifurcation scenarios that still lack a detailed description.This book presents some of the fascinating new phenomena that one can observe in piecewise-smooth dynamical systems. The practical significance of these phenomena is demonstrated through a series of well-documented and realistic applications to switching power converters, relay systems, and different types of pulse-width modulated control systems. Other examples are derived from mechanical engineering, digital electronics, and economic business-cycle theory.The topics considered in the book include abrupt transitions associated with modified period-doubling, saddle-node and Hopf bifurcations, the interplay between classical bifurcations and border-collision bifurcations, truncated bifurcation scenarios, period-tripling and -quadrupling bifurcations, multiple-choice bifurcations, new types of direct transitions to chaos, and torus destruction in nonsmooth systems.In spite of its orientation towards engineering problems, the book addresses theoretical and numerical problems in sufficient detail to be of interest to nonlinear scientists in general.

This book presents a coherent framework for understanding the dynamics of piecewise-smooth and hybrid systems. An informal introduction expounds the ubiquity of such models via numerous. The results are presented in an informal style, and illustrated with many examples. The book is aimed at a wide audience of applied mathematicians, engineers and scientists at the beginning postgraduate level. Almost no mathematical background is assumed other than basic calculus and algebra.

Technical problems often lead to differential equations withpiecewise-smooth right-hand sides. Problems in mechanicalengineering, for instance, violate the requirements of smoothness ifthey involve collisions, finite clearances, or stickOCoslipphenomena."

1. Fundamentals of piecewise-smooth, continuous systems. 1.1. Applications. 1.2. A framework for local behavior. 1.3. Existence of equilibria and fixed points. 1.4. The observer canonical form. 1.5. Discontinuous bifurcations. 1.6. Border-collision bifurcations. 1.7. Poincaré maps and discontinuity maps. 1.8. Period adding. 1.9. Smooth approximations -- 2. Discontinuous bifurcations in planar systems. 2.1. Periodic orbits. 2.2. The focus-focus case in detail. 2.3. Summary and classification -- 3. Codimension-two, discontinuous bifurcations. 3.1. A nonsmooth, saddle-node bifurcation. 3.2. A nonsmooth, Hopf bifurcation. 3.3. A codimension-two, discontinuous Hopf bifurcation -- 4. The growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. 4.1. Mathematical model. 4.2. Basic mathematical observations. 4.3. Bifurcation structure. 4.4. Simple and complicated stable oscillations -- 5. Codimension-two, border-collision bifurcations. 5.1. A nonsmooth, saddle-node bifurcation. 5.2. A nonsmooth, period-doubling bifurcation -- 6. Periodic solutions and resonance tongues. 6.1. Symbolic dynamics. 6.2. Describing and locating periodic solutions. 6.3. Resonance tongue boundaries. 6.4. Rotational symbol sequences. 6.5. Cardinality of symbol sequences. 6.6. Shrinking points. 6.7. Unfolding shrinking points -- 7. Neimark-Sacker-like bifurcations. 7.1. A two-dimensional map. 7.2. Basic dynamics. 7.3. Limiting parameter values. 7.4. Resonance tongues. 7.5. Complex phenomena relating to resonance tongues. 7.6. More complex phenomena

The book presents the recent achievements on bifurcation studies of nonlinear dynamical systems. The contributing authors of the book are all distinguished researchers in this interesting subject area. The first two chapters deal with the fundamental theoretical issues of bifurcation analysis in smooth and non-smooth dynamical systems. The cell mapping methods are presented for global bifurcations in stochastic and deterministic, nonlinear dynamical systems in the third chapter. The fourth chapter studies bifurcations and chaos in time-varying, parametrically excited nonlinear dynamical systems. The fifth chapter presents bifurcation analyses of modal interactions in distributed, nonlinear, dynamical systems of circular thin von Karman plates. The theories, methods and results presented in this book are of great interest to scientists and engineers in a wide range of disciplines. This book can be adopted as references for mathematicians, scientists, engineers and graduate students conducting research in nonlinear dynamical systems. · New Views for Difficult Problems · Novel Ideas and Concepts · Hilbert's 16th Problem · Normal Forms in Polynomial Hamiltonian Systems · Grazing Flow in Non-smooth Dynamical Systems · Stochastic and Fuzzy Nonlinear Dynamical Systems · Fuzzy Bifurcation · Parametrical, Nonlinear Systems · Mode Interactions in nonlinear dynamical systems

Global Bifurcations and Chaos: Analytical Methods is unique in the literature of chaos in that it not only defines the concept of chaos in deterministic systems, but it describes the mechanisms which give rise to chaos (i.e., homoclinic and heteroclinic motions) and derives explicit techniques whereby these mechanisms can be detected in specific systems. These techniques can be viewed as generalizations of Melnikov's method to multi-degree of freedom systems subject to slowly varying parameters and quasiperiodic excitations. A unique feature of the book is that each theorem is illustrated with drawings that enable the reader to build visual pictures of global dynamcis of the systems being described. This approach leads to an enhanced intuitive understanding of the theory.

An application of the techniques of dynamical systems and bifurcation theories to the study of nonlinear oscillations. Taking their cue from Poincare, the authors stress the geometrical and topological properties of solutions of differential equations and iterated maps. Numerous exercises, some of which require nontrivial algebraic manipulations and computer work, convey the important analytical underpinnings of problems in dynamical systems and help readers develop an intuitive feel for the properties involved.