title: Conservative spatial chaos of buckled elastic linkages.
abstract: Buckling of an elastic linkage under general loading is investigated. We show that buckling is related to an initial value problem, which is always a conservative, area-preserving mapping, even if the original static problem is nonconservative. In some special cases, we construct the global bifurcation diagrams, and argue that their complicated structure is a consequence of spatial chaos. We characterize spatial chaos by the associated initial value problem's topological entropy, which turns out to be related to the number of buckled configurations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Structural Mechanics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Muegyetem rkp. 3., H-1111 Budapest, Hungary. kocsis@ep-mech.me.bme.hu
authors.forename: Attila
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kocsis
authors.forename: György
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Károlyi
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001703:Biophysics / Q000379:methods; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry; D004548:Elasticity; D019277:Entropy; D015233:Models, Statistical; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry; D013598:Systems Theory
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers; D004247:DNA