Feigenbaum Scenario Exhibited by Thin Plate Dynamics

The dimensionless partial differential equations governing thedynamics of a thin flexible isotropic plate with an external load arederived and investigated. The period doubling bifurcations, as well asthe chaotic dynamics, are detected and analyzed. The algorithms leadingto the reduction of the original equations to those of a difference setof ordinary differential and algebraic equations are proposed, comparedto other known methods, and then applied to the problem.Among others, it is shown that, in spite of the system complexity, theFeigenbaum scenario exhibited by one-dimensional maps also governs theroute to chaos in the continuous system under consideration.