Uncertainties in Nonlinear Structural Dynamics

Call for Papers

Nonlinear dynamical systems usually display high complexity. The last decades has seen a remarkable and fruitful development of nonlinear dynamics and a large number of papers have been published in all branches of science.

In modeling natural and man-made systems, it is assumed in general that the system is perfect and that all parameters of the system are known. However, real systems are usually imperfect and uncertainties are present both in system parameters and in the modeling stage. This is associated with the lack of precise knowledge of the system parameters, random or noisy external loading, operating conditions and variability in manufacturing processes, among other things. In many situations, these uncertainties are not important and may be overlooked in the mathematical modeling of the problem. However, in several situations, the uncertainties can have significant influence on the dynamic response and the stability of the system.

Uncertainties may also be found in system response, even in cases where all parameters are well established, such systems exhibiting high sensitivity to initial conditions.

This is particularly important in strongly nonlinear chaotic systems and those with fractal-basin boundaries.

Also, in many systems, unexpected interactions between different parts of the systems such as in nonideal problems may lead to complex responses.

However, the influence of uncertainties on local and global bifurcations and basins of attractions and on important engineering concepts such as reliability, safety, and robustness is not well studied in literature.

Even the definition of a random bifurcation is still an open problem in nonlinear dynamics.

This is a rather broad topic in nonlinear dynamics. So, the present special issue will be dedicated to the influence of uncertainties on structural dynamics (beams, plates, shells, frames, etc.). In these structures, the main sources of uncertainties are:

These types of uncertainties coupled to system nonlinearities may have a marked influence on the structure's response, particularly in a dynamic environment.

So it is useful to study their influence on bifurcations, stability boundaries, and basins of attraction.

It is also interesting to discuss their influence on safety factors, integrity measures, and confiability.

These topics are essential for a safe design of structures and the development of mathematically based safe (but not too conservative) design codes and methodologies. Since structural systems may be studied using both continuous and discretized models, problems involving PDEs and ODEs should be considered. There is a large scientific community working on nonlinear dynamics of structures that may contribute to this special issue.

Authors should follow the Mathematical Problems in Engineering manuscript format described at the journal site http://www.hindawi.com/journals/mpe/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal's Manuscript Tracking System at http://www.hindawi.com/mts/, according to the following timetable.

Manuscript Due	March 1, 2008
First Round of Reviews	June 1, 2008
Publication Date	September 1, 2008

Guest Editors

• José Manoel Balthazar, Department of Statistics, Applied Mathematics and Computation, State University of Sao Paulo at Rio Claro(UNESP), 13500-230 Rio Claro, SP, Brazil
• Paulo Batista Gonçalves, Civil Engineering Department, Catholic University (PUC-Rio), 22453-900 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
• Reyolando M. R. L. F. Brasil, Department of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering, Polytechnic School, The University of Säo Paulo (PEF/EPUSP/USP) 05508-900 Säo Paulo, SP, Brazil