Heteroclinic bifurcations and optimal control in the nonlinear rocking dynamics of generic and slender rigid blocks

A method for controlling nonlinear dynamics and chaos, previously developed by the authors, is applied to the rigid block on a moving foundation. The method consists in modifying the shape of the excitation in order to eliminate, in an optimal way, the heteroclinic intersections embedded in the system dynamics. Two different cases are examined: (i) generic block under small perturbations and (ii) slender block under generic perturbations, and they are investigated analytically either by a perturbation analysis (former case) or exactly (latter case). Two different strategies are proposed: (i) one-side control, which consists in eliminating the intersections of a single heteroclinic connection, and (ii) global control, which consists in simultaneously eliminating the intersections of both heteroclinic connections. The best excitations permitting the maximum distance between stable and unstable manifolds are determined in both cases. Finally, some numerical investigations aimed at highlighting meaningful aspects of system response under controlled (optimal) and noncontrolled (harmonic) excitations are performed.