Dynamical chaos for a limited power supply for fluid oscillations in cylindrical tanks

Forced oscillations of the fluid surface in a cylindrical tank due to interaction with the excitation mechanism of a limited power supply (so-called “limited excitation” phenomena) are investigated in detail. On the basis of analysis of the largest Lyapunov exponents for a complex system—a tank with fluid and an excitation arrangement—the three types of steady-state regimes are found: equilibrium positions, periodic and chaotic regimes. Phase portraits, Poincaré sections and maps, distributions of spectral densities and invariant measures are constructed and thoroughly studied. Attention is concentrated mainly on the properties of chaotic attractors and schemes of transition from “order” to chaos. It is established that different scenarios of transition to chaos and various structures of chaotic attractors are possible in the same physical system. The new scenario transition to chaos which generalizes scenario of Pomeau–Manneville is revealed. It is shown that chaotic regimes with the single-mode fluid free surface oscillations can originate only due to interaction with the excitation mechanism.