I have been working on a project for the mathematics department at Oakland University over the last year concerning a vehicular thermostat. As you can see , from the graphs; it is a very interesting situation.

The idea is that you have a thermostat in your car that controls how hot or cold the engine is allowed to get. The thermostat is a relatively small device. It consists of a small valve that controls the amount of coolant that can flow into the engine. The valve is opened and closed by a piece of wax that expands and contracts according to the heat generated by the lines. Consequently, coolant is released or constrained, and the engine is held at a relatively stable temperature.

After a while of research and developement it has become apparent that at certain conditions the thermostat enters unstable oscillations that will chaotically fluctate and create graphs like the ones on this page. What I am doing is researching and inspecting obscure oscillations in verify that the system is really chaotically fluctating or merly faulty.

I have provided the code for the most recent versions of the project that I am working on for you to download and look at for yourselves. Its not entirely too complicated so enjoy.

C++ Version - (html) Maple Version - (html) dynamic.exe - (exe) Nov5th-SingleRun - (zip) Nov9-MultiRun - (zip)