TANK LEVEL CHAOTIC DYNAMICS

This research examines the small amplitude, irregular behaviour of the water level of a single tank under closed loop feedback control. The tank provided a physical system that could be studied and modelled. By using ordinary differential equation models, derived from tests on the physical system, simulation studies were also carried out to try to reproduce the measured dynamics. From the simulation studies and from measured results, the form of the time series of the changes in the tank level, the associated spectra, the sensitivity shown to initial conditions, and Lyapunov exponent's calculations indicated chaotic dynamics were present. The route to chaos was identified as one of global bifurcation, with the controller gain used as the control parameter.