An energy analysis of nonlinear oscillators with time-delayed coupling

In this paper, a novel method of energy analysis is developed for dynamical systems with time delays that are slightly perturbed from undamped SDOF/MDOF vibration systems. Being served frequently as the mathematical models in many applications, such systems undergo Hopf bifurcation including the classic "Hopf bifurcation" for SDOF systems and "multiple Hopf bifurcation" for MDOF systems, under certain conditions. An interesting observation of this paper is that the local dynamics near a Hopf bifurcation, including the stability of the trivial equilibrium and the bifurcating periodic solutions, of such systems, can be justified simply by the change of the total energy function. The key idea is that for the systems of concern, the total power (the total derivative of the energy function) can be estimated along an approximated solution with harmonic entries, the main part of the solution near the Hopf bifurcation. It shows that the present method works effectively for stability prediction of the trivial equilibrium and the bifurcating periodic solutions, and that it provides a high accurate estimation of the amplitudes of the bifurcating periodic solutions. Compared with the current methods such as the center manifold reduction which involves a great deal of symbolic computation, the energy analysis features a clear physical intuition and easy computation. Two illustrative examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the present method.