Characterizing chaotic dynamics from simulations of large strain behavior of a granular material under biaxial compression

Abstract

For a given observed time series, it is still a rather difficult problem to provide a useful and compelling description of the underlying dynamics. The approach we take here, and the general philosophy adopted elsewhere, is to reconstruct the (assumed) attractor from the observed time series. From this attractor, we then use a black-box modelling algorithm to estimate the underlying evolution operator. We assume that what cannot be modeled by this algorithm is best treated as a combination of dynamic and observational noise. As a final step, we apply an ensemble of techniques to quantify the dynamics described in each model and show that certain types of dynamics provide a better match to th..