10/08/2011

 Speaker: Khurrum Wadee
 University of Exeter, UK

will talk on

 Title
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 Unfolding of homoclinic and heteroclinic behaviour in a
 multiply-symmetric strut buckling problem.

 Abstract
 --------
 Localized buckling in infinitely long structures has been at the
 forefront of furthering our understanding of homoclinic solutions in a
 class of reversible fourth-order systems.  
 At criticality, the system encounters a sub-critical Hamiltonian-Hopf 
 bifurcation from which emanate homoclinic (localized) solutions.  
 These are unstable in the physical sense but the presence of 
 higher order nonlinearity can act to stabilize the solutions.  
 When appropriate stabilization is present, the homoclinic solution transforms 
 into a heteroclinic solution with the propagation of a front.  
 Careful analysis of the boundary layer between
 the zero solution and constant finite amplitude solution is the key to
 understanding how this transformation occurs.  
 These predictions are then tested against numerical solutions 
 of the governing equations.