Critical oscillations of mass-spring systems due to nonsmooth friction

International audienceCritical values of the parameters governing the dynamics of simple systems appear when Coulomb friction is not regularized. We explore such systems using a method based on the fact that under constant or analytical data the trajectory exists, is unique and is also sufficiently regular. In fact these properties justify elementary analytical computations on successive time intervals where the condition used to connect the solution from one interval to the other is due to the regularity. Although the systems are simple the dynamics turn out to be quite complex and thus furnish an interesting benchmark for contact dynamics numerical codes. Among other possible applications we choose to present here how to use a mass-spring chain with Coulomb friction to slow down in a progressive and regular manner an oncoming mass with a given initial velocity