Effect of External Excitations on a Nonlinear System with Time Delay

The trivial equilibrium of a two-degree-of-freedom autonomous system may become unstable via a Hopf bifurcation of multiplicity two and give rise to oscillatory bifurcating solutions, due to presence of a time delay in the linear and nonlinear terms. The effect of external excitations on the dynamic behaviour of the corresponding non-autonomous system, after the Hopf bifurcation, is investigated based on the behaviour of solutions to the four-dimensional system of ordinary differential equations. The interaction between the Hopf bifurcating solutions and the high level excitations may induce a non-resonant or secondary resonance response, depending on the ratio of the frequency of bifurcating periodic motion to the frequency of external excitation. The first-order approximate periodic solutions for the non-resonant and super-harmonic resonance response are found to be in good agreement with those obtained by direct numerical integration of the delay differential equation. It is found that the non-resonant response may be either periodic or quasi-periodic. It is shown that the super-harmonic resonance response may exhibit periodic and quasi-periodic motions as well as a co-existence of two or three stable motions.