Dynamics of a three DOF mechanical system with dry friction

The dynamics of a three-block mechanical system is investigated: each block is pulled by a belt and is subjected to linear elastic and nonlinear frictional forces which induce oscillations in the system. The study of the full dynamics of the system is partially reduced to the study of a two-dimensional map; its attractors, their basins of attraction and their Lyapunov exponents provide a powerful tool to understand the dynamic behaviour of the full mechanical system which possesses rich dynamics characterised by periodic, quasi-periodic, chaotic and hyper-chaotic attractors. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.