Dynamics of 1D nonlinear pantographic continua

In this paper a mechanical system consisting of a chain of masses connected by nonlinear springs and a pantographic microstructure is studied. A homogenized form of the energy is justified through a standard passage from finite differences involving the characteristic length to partial derivatives. The corresponding continuous motion equation, which is a nonlinear fourth-order PDE, is investigated. Traveling wave solutions are imposed and quasi-soliton solutions are found and numerically compared with the motion of the system resulting from a generic perturbation.