Physics 427

Dr. Ayars

Duffing Oscillator Circuit

This is an electronic circuit that simulates a particle in a Duffing potential. You can "drive" the particle with an external voltage, changing frequency and amplitude, and you can measure the resulting position and velocity of the particle. At some drive parameters, the motion of the particle becomes chaotic. Interesting investigations could include creation of Poincare plots of the strange attractor, mapping bifurcations, and determination of Lyapunov exponent at different drive parameters.

This circuit was first tested by Carleene Busse in the fall of 2012, the current apparatus was built by Eric Ayars. It works acceptably, but there is currently an unexplained asymmetry in the circuit that makes one lobe preferential to the other. This asymmetry does not break the experiment, but finding a fix for the problem would be nice.

Reading

Picture of this apparatus

Questions

Hazards

None.

Location

Room 108, Cabinet 108.12

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