Experiments with a Malkus–Lorenz water wheel: Chaos and Synchronization

We describe an experimental implementation of the Malkus–Lorenz water wheel. We demonstrate that both chaotic and periodic behavior is observed as wheel parameters are changed in agreement with predictions from the Lorenz model. We further show that when the measured angular velocity of the water wheel is used as an input signal to a computer model implementing the Lorenz equations, high-quality synchronization of the model and the water wheel is achieved in the chaotic regime. This indicates that the Lorenz equations provide a good description of the water wheel dynamics.