PROGRAM NO - 9

Phase Trajectory of a
Chaotic Pendulum

The Pendulum
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a
pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a
restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position.
When released, the restoring force combined with the pendulum's mass causes it
to oscillate about the equilibrium position, swinging back and forth. The time for one
complete cycle, a left swing and a right swing, is called the period. A pendulum swings with a
specific period which depends (mainly) on its length. Pendulums are used to
regulate pendulum clocks, and are used in scientific instruments such
as accelerometers and seismometers. The word 'pendulum' is new Latin, from the
Latin pendulus, meaning 'hanging'.

(Simple pendulum)

(Double pendulum)

The Chaotic Pendulum

The chaotic behaviour of pendulum is usually associated with the random force acting on a
pendulum (Brownian motion). The double pendulum undergoes chaotic motion, and shows a
sensitive dependence on initial conditions. A damped driven pendulum is often used as a
basic example of a chaotic system. For a chaotic system the future behaviour is highly
dependent on the exact value of the initial conditions. A tiny change in initial conditions can
cause huge changes after a short period of time. The pendulum is subject to frictional
damping, meaning that it will slow down over time if there is no driving force. Not all
combinations of the parameters (e.g. length, gravity, drive amplitude, drive frequency,
damping) will lead to chaos. Many combinations result in simpler repeating behaviour.
There is a phenomenon known as period doubling or bifurcation where slowly increasing one
of the parameters (such as drive amplitude) causes the number of loops in the repeating
behaviour to double. After enough period doublings occur, the system becomes chaotic. A
curious thing about this chaotic behaviour is that it is not entirely random. While we can't
predict the exact state of the system at a given time in the future, it is possible to show that
the system will follow an elaborate pattern, These patterns are fractals, which are patterns
that repeat themselves when you magnify them.
Equation of motion for simple pendulum is
d 2 g
=
sin
l
dt 2
Where l is length of the pendulum, g is acc. due to gravity and is angular displacement. For
small amplitude it reduces to simple harmonic oscillation.
Now for l=g and m=1, equation reduces to
d2
=sin
dt 2
Here we keep

sin

term not approximating it by a linear term. This brings in the feature

of non linearity which looked at in phase space provides an ideal ground to understand chaos.
More generally, the equation of motion can be written as
d2 x
=F ( x , v , t )
2
dt
Where x,v are respectively The angular displacement and velocity. F(x,v,t) is a non-linear
function within certain limitations. The limitations may be relaxed depending on the realistic
choice of parameters involved. Some of the important features may be VISCOUS
DAMPING, DRIVING FORCE, for which the net force F(x,v,t) may be given by

t
()
1+ f 0 cos sin x
F ( x , v , t )=cv

(a)

Where the 1st term is VISCOUS DAMPING with c constant,f 0 and

are amplitude and

frequency of driving force.

We use 4th order RUNGE-KUTTA METHOD to generate trajectories in phase space.

Runge-kutta method
The Runge-Kutta method of integrating
dy
=f (x , y)
dx
is a step-by-step process of obtaining an approximation for yi+1 by starting from the value of
yi. Among its advantages are that no functions other than f are used, no subsidiary
differentiation is needed and no additional starting values need be calculated.
To be set against these advantages is the fact that f is evaluated using somewhat Complicated
arguments and that this has to be done several times for each increase in the value of i.
However, once a procedure has been established, for example on a computer, the method
usually gives good results.
The basis of the method is to simulate the (accurate) Taylor series for y(x i+h), not by
calculating all the higher derivatives of y at the point xi but by taking a particular combination
of the values of the first derivative of y evaluated at a number of carefully chosen points.
The Runge-Kutta 4th order method is based on the following
yi 1 yi a1k1 a 2 k 2 a3 k 3 a4 k 4 h

(1)
y yi

by knowing the value of

y yi 1

xi

at

, we can find the value of

xi 1

at

, and

h xi 1 xi

Equation (1) is equated to the first five terms of Taylor series

yi 1 yi

dy
dx

2! dx

1d
x , y xi 1 xi
i

1d y
4! dx 4

xi , yi

3! dx

1d
2
x , y xi 1 xi
i

xi , yi

xi 1 xi

xi 1 xi 4
(2)

Knowing that

dy
f x, y
dx

xi 1 xi h

and

y i 1 y i f xi , y i h

1 '
1
f xi , y i h 2 f
2!
3!

''

xi , y i h 3 1

4!

'''

xi , y i h 4
(3)

Based on equating Equation (2) and Equation (3), one of the popular solutions used is
y i 1 y i

1
k1 2 k 2 2 k 3 k 4 h
6

(4)

And,

k1 f x i , y i
(5a)

1
1

k2 f xi h, yi k1h
2
2

(5b)

1
1

k 3 f x i h, y i k 2 h
2
2

(5c)

k 4 f x i h, y i k 3 h

(5d)

Algorithm

1. Define the function

2. Input the values of

t
()
1+ f 0 cos sin x
F ( x , v , t )=cv
cf 0

in command window,

x=0.01, v=0.01, w=5, tf =10,t=0 ,

4. Input the number of time steps h ,

3. Input the initial values of

5. Input time step n=(tf ti)/h ,

6. Using Runge-Kutta method solve the differential equation

t
()
1+f 0 cos sin x
F ( x , v , t )=cv
Loop: i from 0 to n ,
k 1=hf ( x , v , t)
k 2=hf (x +(h(v /2)), v +( k 1/ 2) , t+(h/2))

k 3=hf ( x +hv /2+hk 1/4, v+ k 2/2, t +h/2)

k 4=hf ( x +hv +hk 2/2, v +k 3, t + h)

x=x+(h(v +((k 1+k 2+k 3)/6)))

v =v +((k 1+(2k 2)+(2k 3)+k 4 )/6)

7. Take output & plot x vs v.