Bifurcation and chaos of an axially moving viscoelastic string

In this paper, bifurcation and chaos of an axially moving viscoelastic string are investigated. The 1-term and the 2-term Galerkin truncations are respectively employed to simplify the partial-differential equation that governs the transverse motions of the string into a set of ordinary differential equations. The bifurcation diagrams are presented in the case that the transport speed, the amplitude of the periodic perturbation, or the dynamic viscosity is respectively varied while other parameters are fixed. The dynamical behaviors are numerically identified based on the Poincare maps. Numerical simulations indicate that periodic, quasi-periodic and chaotic motions occur in the transverse vibrations of the axially moving viscoelastic string. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.