Dynamical System Analyses of Aperiodic Flow-Induced Oscillations of a Collapsible Tube

The paper briefly reviews dynamical systems analysis concepts and techniques which were applied to gain knowledge of a particular biomechanical problem, that of self-excited oscillation of flow through the collapsed flexible tubes found in many different parts of the body. The tubes investigated had a relatively thick wall and the through-flow was turbulent. The methods deployed did not suffice to indicate unequivocally the presence of a low-dimensional chaotic attractor amid this high-dimensional or random influence. Chaos has recently been demonstrated in the same system when upstream forcing interacts with otherwise periodic oscillations