Nichols, J. M.; Virgin, L. N. Practical evaluation of invariant measures for the chaotic response of a two-frequency excited mechanical oscillator. (English) Zbl 1004.70020 Nonlinear Dyn. 26, No. 1, 67-86 (2001). Summary: This paper presents results which characterize the chaotic response of a low-dimensional mechanical oscillator. An experimental system based on a cart rolling on a two-well potential surface has been shown to closely approximate a modified form of Duffing’s equation. Two-frequency forcing is applied, providing a useful means of varying the dimension of the response. Computation of correlation dimension and Lyapunov spectra are performed on both experimental and numerical data in order to assess the utility of these measures in a practical setting. A specific focus is the distinction between subharmonic and quasi-periodic forcing, since this has a subtle effect on the subsequent dynamics. The results tend to highlight the statistical nature of the measures and the caution that should be used in their interpretation. Cited in 1 Document MSC: 70K55 Transition to stochasticity (chaotic behavior) for nonlinear problems in mechanics 70K40 Forced motions for nonlinear problems in mechanics 37N05 Dynamical systems in classical and celestial mechanics Keywords:attractor; invariant measures; Lyapunov exponents; correlation sum; modified Duffing’s equation; two-frequency forcing; chaotic response; low-dimensional mechanical oscillator; two-well potential; correlation dimension; Lyapunov spectra; quasi-periodic forcing PDFBibTeX XMLCite \textit{J. M. Nichols} and \textit{L. N. Virgin}, Nonlinear Dyn. 26, No. 1, 67--86 (2001; Zbl 1004.70020) Full Text: DOI