Magneto-elastic oscillator: Modeling and analysis with nonlinear magnetic interaction

The magneto-elastically buckled beam is a classic example of a nonlinear oscillator that exhibits chaotic motions. This system serves as a model to analyze the motion of elastic structures in magnetic fields. The system follows a sixth order magneto-elastic potential and may have up to five static equilibrium positions. However, often the non-dimensional Duffing equation is used to approximate the system, with the coefficients being derived from experiments. In few other instances, numerical methods are used to evaluate the magnetic field values. These field values are then used to approximate the nonlinear magnetic restoring force. In this manuscript, we derive analytical closed form expressions for the magneto-elastic potential and the nonlinear restoring forces in the system. Such an analytical formulation would facilitate tracing the effect of change in a parameter, such as the magnet dimension, on the dynamics of the system. The model is derived assuming a single mode approximation, taking into account the effect of linear elastic and nonlinear magnetic forces. The developed model is then numerically simulated to show that it is accurate in capturing the system dynamics and bifurcation of equilibrium positions. The model is validated through experiments based on forced vibrations of the magneto-elastic oscillator. To gather further insights about the magneto-elastic oscillator, a parametric study has been conducted based on the field strength of the magnets and the distance between the magnets and the results are reported.