INSTABILITY, CHAOS, AND GROWTH AND DECAY OF ENERGY OF TIME-STEPPING SCHEMES FOR NON-LINEAR DYNAMIC EQUATIONS.

In this paper we present numerical experiments made to investigate the behaviour of the Newmark time- stepping scheme applied to non-linear dynamic systems. Our attention is focused on the instability and chaos in the Newmark scheme when it is applied to the equation ü + P(u) = 0, representing a non-linear elastic spring. Some unusual modes of behaviour, which are of substantial interest, have been observed. In the first case, a stable but chaotic solution is found. In the second case, while a stable solution is obtained with a certain time step, an unstable solution is found by decreasing the time step. In the third case, instability is triggered by neglecting the initial acceleration. A simple modification of the Newmark scheme is proposed which keeps the energy constant for the equation ü + P(u) = 0 and thereby guarantees unconditional stability. Numerical examples in support of such an energy-conserving scheme are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]