Chaos on the conveyor belt

Sándor, Bulcsú and Járai-Szabó, Ferenc and Tél, Tamás and Néda, Zoltán (2013) Chaos on the conveyor belt. PHYSICAL REVIEW E - STATISTICAL, NONLINEAR AND SOFT MATTER PHYSICS, 87 (4). 42920/1-12. ISSN 1539-3755

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Abstract

The dynamics of a spring-block train placed on a moving conveyor belt is investigated both by simple experiments and computer simulations. The first block is connected by a spring to an external static point and, due to the dragging effect of the belt, the blocks undergo complex stick-slip dynamics. A qualitative agreement with the experimental results can be achieved only by taking into account the spatial inhomogeneity of the friction force on the belt's surface, modeled as noise. As a function of the velocity of the conveyor belt and the noise strength, the system exhibits complex, self-organized critical, sometimes chaotic, dynamics and phase transition-like behavior. Noise-induced chaos and intermittency is also observed. Simulations suggest that the maximum complexity of the dynamical states is achieved for a relatively small number of blocks (around five).

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