Cable’s non-planar coupled vibrations under asynchronous out-of-plane support motions: travelling wave effect

Cable’s non-planar coupled dynamics under asynchronous out-of-plane support motions is investigated in this paper. The moving boundary difficulty is coped by transforming the small support motions into two resonant boundary modulation terms, and cable’s one-to-one resonant coupled non-planar dynamics is reduced through attacking directly the continuous dynamic equations by the multiple scale method. Two boundary dynamic coefficients are derived, characterizing the boundary modulation effects, which are equal for symmetric out-of-plane modes, while opposite for asymmetric ones. Both cable’s frequency and amplitude (of support deflection) response diagrams, with phase lags between supports, are constructed using numerical continuation algorithms, and the steady-state solutions’ stability and bifurcation properties are determined, based upon which the phase lags’ effects on dynamic responses, or travelling wave effects, are thoroughly investigated, through varying the phase lags.