Nonlinear dynamics of a forced thermoacoustic oscillation

Abstract

A spontaneous acoustic oscillation of a gas column induced by temparature gradients is periodically perturbed by an external force. Nonlinear coupling between two oscillating modes can generate abundant nonlinear phenomena, quasiperiodicity, frequency locking, onset of chaos, and quenching phenomenon. Adjusting the frequency ratio to the golden mean, we study the scaling universality for the quasiperiodic transition to chaos. The first experiment in acoustics demonstrates that thermoacoustic systems follow universal scaling properties of the circle map in spite of the complexity of the system.