Principal parametric resonances of a slender cantilever beam subject to axial narrow-band random excitation of its base

The non-linear integro-differential equations of motion for a slender cantilever beam subject to axial narrow-band random excitation are investigated. The method of multiple scales is used to determine a uniform first-order expansion of the solution of equations. According to solvability conditions, the non-linear modulation equations for the principal parametric resonance are obtained. Firstly, The largest Lyapunov exponent which determines the almost sure stability of the trivial solution is quantificationally resolved, in which, the modified Bessel function of the first kind is introduced. Results show that the increase of the bandwidth facilitates the almost sure stability of the trivial response and stabilizes the system for a lower acceleration oscillating amplitude but intensifies the instability of the trivial response for a higher one. Secondly, the first and second order non-trivial steady state response of the system is obtained by perturbation method and the corresponding amplitude–frequency curves are calculated when the bandwidth is very small. Results show that the effective non-linearity of whether the amplitude expectation of the first order steady state response or the amplitude expectation of the second order steady state response is of the hardening type for the first mode, whereas for the second mode the effective non-linearity of whether the amplitude expectation of the first order steady state response or the amplitude expectation of the second order steady state response is of the softening type. Finally, the stochastic jump and bifurcation is investigated for the first and second modal parametric principal resonance. The basic jump phenomena indicate that, under the conditions of system parameters with a smaller bandwidth, the most probable motion is around the non-trivial branch of the amplitude response curve, whereas with a higher bandwidth, the most probable motion is around the trivial one of the amplitude response curve. However, the stochastic jump is sometimes more sensitive to the change of the bandwidth, in other words, a small change of bandwidth may induce a series of stochastic jump and bifurcation.