Abstract
This paper presents preliminary results of an experimental study on the characterisation of the nonlinear dynamics of bistable composite shell structures. The property of bistability and snap-through motion of bistable composite structures gives them enormous potential in numerous aerospace applications including deployable spacecraft structures and vibration energy harvesting. The dynamic response of a square bistable composite unsymmetric laminate plate with two approximately cylindrical stable states supported at its centre is experimentally characterised by means of controlled amplitude and frequency harmonic base excitation. Primary resonance excitation of the first bending mode of the plate is performed using amplitude sweeps. For both stable states, the response begins with periodic single-well oscillations at low excitation amplitudes. Increasing the excitation amplitude beyond a critical value, cross-well oscillations in the form intermittent subharmonic-chaotic snap-through are initiated. At higher excitation levels, period-5, period-4, and period-3 subharmonic continuous cross-well oscillations are observed, in addition to chaotic snap-through. Future work will extend the experimental study to characterize the nonlinear dynamics of a bistable composite cylindrical shell and a bistable composite doubly curved shell such that the responses of the various types of bistable composite structure can be compared and used to inform the design of bistable composite shell structures for applications involving highly dynamic environments.