Abstract
In this study, three degrees of freedom nonlinear air cushion vehicle (ACV) model is introduced to examine the dynamic behavior of the heave and pitch responses in addition to the cushion pressure of the ACV in both time and frequency domains. The model is based on the compressible flow Bernoulli's equation and the thermodynamics nonlinear isentropic relations along with the Newton's second law of translation and rotation. In this study, the dynamical investigation was based on numerical simulation using the stiff ODE solvers of the Matlab software. The chaotic investigations of the proposed model are provided using the fast Fourier transform (FFT), the Poincare maps, and the regression analysis. Three control design parameters are investigated for the chaotic studies. These parameters are ACV mass (M), the mass flowrate entering the cushion volume (m_in), and the ACV base radius (r). Chaos behavior was observed for heave and pitch responses as well as the cushion pressure.