Non-linear responses of suspended cables to primary resonance excitations

We investigate the non-linear forced responses of shallow suspended cables. We consider the following cases: (1) primary resonance of a single in-plane mode and (2) primary resonance of a single out-of-plane mode. In both cases, we assume that the excited mode is not involved in an autoparametric resonance with any other mode. We analyze the system by following two approaches. In the first, we discretize the equations of motion using the Galerkin procedure and then apply the method of multiple scales to the resulting system of non-linear ordinary-differential equations to obtain approximate solutions (discretization approach). In the second, we apply the method of multiple scales directly to the non-linear integral-partial-differential equations of motion and associated boundary conditions to determine approximate solutions (direct approach). We then compare results obtained with both approaches and discuss the influence of the number of modes retained in the discretization procedure on the predicted solutions. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.