Insights into the energy equipartition principle in large undamped structures

The question of energy sharing among complex engineering vibrating systems is still an open problem. On the basis of some recent investigations, this paper is addressed to the prediction of the equilibrium energies of interacting conservative resonators and to a better understanding of the principle of energy equipartition for large undamped systems. The analysis explores the field of linear and nonlinear vibrations, the effects of inhomogeneity, the weak or the strong coupling its well as the effect of the initial energy distribution among the subsystems. The principle of energy equipartition is shown to react in a different fashion to these factors. Sonic general arguments, supported by the results of numerical experiments, enlightening promoting or inhibiting factors to the reaching of energy equipartition conditions, are given. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.