Chaotic behavior of a Galerkin model of a two-dimensional flow

Chaotic behavior of a Galerkin model of the Kolmogorov fluid motion equations is demonstrated. The study focuses on the dynamical behavior of limit trajectories branching off secondary periodic solutions. It is shown that four limit trajectories exist and transform simultaneously from periodic solutions to chaotic attractors through a sequence of bifurcations including a periodic-doubling scenario. Some instability regimes display close similarities to those of a discrete dynamical system generated by an interval map. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.