Professor Francis C. Moon

FCM3@cornell.edu

Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Member of Graduate Fields of Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics

Project #6 Chaotic Dynamics in Clocks

The goal of this project is to explore the concept that ‘a little chaos is essential to the normal operation of machines’. In this study we will focus on machines with natural oscillations such as mechanical clocks. The student should have some familiarity with ideas of nonlinear dynamics such as Poincare maps and bifurcations as may be found in the books of F.C.Moon and S. Strogatz. The student must have a high skill level in MATLAB. There may be an opportunity to make measurements on several clock escapements in the Reuleaux Model Collection.

Interested Students in this project should contact Ms. June Meyermann 607-255 0992 or jm75@cornell.edu for an appointment