Chaotic Motion of a Driven Nonlinear Pendulum

Sung S, Hohman P
In order to explore the characteristics of chaotic motion and verify whether a chaotic
system evolves in a deterministic way, we attempted to demonstrate chaotic motion
using a torsional driven nonlinear pendulum. Chaotic motion was achieved at the initial
conditions of driving amplitude = 55.19 0.005 , magnet distance = 8.44
and the driving frequency at 0.95 0.005 Hz. The motion of the system was tracked by
a rotary motion sensor and visualized in both phase space and in Poincare plot.

I. Introduction
When given the word Chaos, many people
would image a total mess. In other words, a
system wild in appearance. While the concept of
a mess and chaos is not very different, chaos
can be a very tricky concept to define in the field
of physics. Even the textbooks dealing with
chaos do not agree with one definition. For
example, Wiggins says, "A dynamical system
displaying sensitive dependence on initial
conditions on a closed invariant set will be
called chaotic."[1] And Tabor says, "By a chaotic
solution to a deterministic equation we mean a
solution whose outcome is very sensitive to
initial conditions and whose evolution through
phase space appears to be quite random."[2]
Putting both definitions together and simplifying
it, a chaotic system can be thought as a system
distinguished by sensitive dependence on initial
conditions and by having evolution through
phase space that appears to be random.
However, note that despite its randomness,
chaos is a fully deterministic evolution; a chaotic
system can evolve in a smooth and ordered
manner.[3]
In order to explore the characteristics of chaotic
motion and verify whether a chaotic system
evolves in a deterministic way, first we scoped
on the difference between periodic oscillations
of a driven, damped, harmonic oscillating

pendulum. Then, using a torsional pendulum, we

attempted to demonstrate chaotic motion.
II. Theoretical Background
In order to visualize chaotic motion, it is
essential to understand the concept of phase
space and Poincare plot. Phase space is a space
where every possible states of a system are
represented with each single possible state
corresponding to a unique point in the space.
Poincare plot uses the same space as in the
phase space. However, it can be thought as a
type of a delay map since only one state per
period is plotted. When chaotic oscillations are
present, the graphs in both phase space and the
Poincare plot do not repeat. In this experiment,
Angular velocity () vs. Angular displacement
() will be our phase space and Poincare plot.
Now the equation of motion for a damped
driven pendulum given in Equation 1 where is
the moment of inertia of the pendulum, is the
damping coefficient, is the effective weight
of the pendulum, is the effective radius, is
the driving amplitude and is the driving
frequency. We start from this equation since we
will be demonstrating chaotic motion of a driven
nonlinear torsional pendulum.

+ + sin = cos

(1)

The equation of motion for a damped driven

pendulum can be broken up into three
differential equations shown below

= cos sin

(2)

(3)

(4)

where = and = as in Equation 1.

From the three equations above, it is clearly
shown that there are three dynamical variables
with non-linear trigonometric terms.

images that we had saved before. Data for

resonant frequency, linear oscillation and
nonlinear oscillation will be included soon.
Figure 2 below shows the phase space when the
torsional pendulum is in chaotic motion. This
was achieved with the initial conditions of
driving amplitude = 55.19 0.005 ,
magnet distance from the disk = 8.44
and the driving frequency at 0.95 0.005 Hz.
The plot was achieved after running the system
for about an hour.

III. Experimental Procedure

How the complete setup of the experiment
looks like is shown in Figure 1. Using steel rods
and clamps, a disk pully is fixed at a height
around 1.30m. Close to the ground surface and
driving arm, a rotary motion sensor is attached
in order to measure the driving frequency. Data
studio was used to collect and visualize the data.
Figure 1. Phase space showing chaotic motion of a
torsional pendulum. The pendulum was driven for about an
hour.

The symmetrical shape of the plot implies that

the system does not have a tendency to fall into
a single desired potential well.
Figure 3 shows the Poincare plot with the same
measurement and data.

Figure 2. Complete setup of the

experiment. Equipment includes steel
rods, clamps, mechanical oscillator,
power supply, motion sensor and two
springs along with data studio software
for data analysis

IV. Data and Discussion

**Note: Data studio on my laptop kept crashing
for unknown reasons whenever I tried to import
our data. For that reason, I am only using the

Figure 3. Poincare plot showing chaotic

motion of a torsional pendulum. The
measurements and data are the same as the
ones in the phase space.

V. Conclusion
It was verified that at a particular initial
condition chaotic motion can be observed. This
was achieved with the driving frequency at
0.95 0.005 Hz , driving amplitude =
55.19 0.005 and the magnet distance
from the disk at 8.44 Moreover, from the
phase space diagram and Poincare plot we were
able to see that a chaotic system evolves in a
smooth and ordered manner. In other words,
despite the randomness in chaos, chaos
appeared to be a fully deterministic evolution.

[1] Wiggins, S. Introduction to Applied Nonlinear Dynamical

Systems and Chaos. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1990.
[2] Tabor, M. Chaos and Integrability in Nonlinear Dynamics:
An Introduction. New York: Wiley, 1989.
[3] Weisstein, Eric W. "Chaos." From MathWorld--A Wolfram
Web Resource