Periodic Flows to Chaos Based on Discrete Implicit Mappings of Continuous Nonlinear Systems

This paper presents a semi-analytical method for periodic flows in continuous nonlinear dynamical systems. For the semi-analytical approach, differential equations of nonlinear dynamical systems are discretized to obtain implicit maps, and a mapping structure based on the implicit maps is employed for a periodic flow. From mapping structures, periodic flows in nonlinear dynamical systems are predicted analytically and the corresponding stability and bifurcations of the periodic flows are determined through the eigenvalue analysis. The periodic flows predicted by the single-step implicit maps are discussed first, and the periodic flows predicted by the multistep implicit maps are also presented. Periodic flows in time-delay nonlinear dynamical systems are discussed by the single-step and multistep implicit maps. The time-delay nodes in discretization of time-delay nonlinear systems were treated by both an interpolation and a direct integration. Based on the discrete nodes of periodic flows in nonlinear dynamical systems with/without time-delay, the discrete Fourier series responses of periodic flows are presented. To demonstrate the methodology, the bifurcation tree of period-1 motion to chaos in a Duffing oscillator is presented as a sampled problem. The method presented in this paper can be applied to nonlinear dynamical systems, which cannot be solved directly by analytical methods.