1

Chua Circuit Equations

Choose as the dynamical variables:
V1 : the voltage across capacitor C1 (and the nonlinear resistance)
V2 : the voltage across capacitor C2 (and the voltage across the inductor)
I : the current through the inductor.
Kirchoffs laws then give
dV1
= R 1 (V2 V1 ) g(V1 )
dt
dV2
C2
= R 1 (V2 V1 ) + I
dt
dI
L
= rI V2
dt
C1

where g (V ) is the conductance (I /V ) for the effective nonlinear resistance (and is a

negative quantity for the circuit). If we scale resistances by R1 , times by C1 R1 , measure
voltages with respect to the switch point Vc in g (V ), and currents with respect to Vc /R1 ,
we get the equations
dX
= a (Y X) g(X)

dt
dY
= [a (Y X) + Z]
dt
dZ
= c (Y + r Z)
dt
with X = V1 /Vc , Y = V2 /Vc , Z = R1 I /Vc , and then the parameters of the equations
are:
a
b
c

R1 /R
1 R1 /R2
C1 R12 /L
C1 /C2
r/R1

0.923
0.636
0.779
0.066
0.071

2
with the third column giving the values for the initial parameters of the applet. The
nonlinear conductance is

|X| < 1
X

1 < |X| < 10

[1 + b(|X| 1)] sgn (X)
g (X) =

|X| > 10
[10 (|X| 10) + (9b 1)] sgn (X)
where the expression for |X| > 10 is needed for stability, and corresponds to complicated
saturation effects in the actual circuit. Note that the slope is 1 for |X| < 1, b for
1 < |X| < 10, and 10 for |X| > 10.
The time independent solutions are at
X=

1b
1b
'
,
a
ab
1+r a b

Y =

a r
X ' 0,
1 + r a

Z=

a
X ' aX
1 + r a

Linearizing about the fixed points gives solutions varying as et with given by the
eigenvalues of the stability matrix

a + b
a
0
a
a
0
c r c
and positive means the stationary solutions are unstable.
Some examples of the eigenvalues 1 , 2 , and 3 :
a
0.923
1
0.923
1

b
0.636
0.636
0.636
0.636

c
0.779
0.779
0.779
0.779

0.066
0.066
0.066
0.066

r
0.071
0.071
0
0

1
. 40191
. 48631
. 40617
. 48897

2,3
6. 5991 104 . 17715i
5. 0174 104 . 1836i
2. 9125 102 . 18836i
2. 9486 102 . 1934i

In each case there is one decaying (negative) eigenvalue, and a pair of oscillating
(complex)
eigenvalues, with an imaginary part around 0.2, corresponding roughly to the

1/ LC2 oscillation frequency, and a real part that is either slightly negative (decaying
oscillation) as for the paraemters of the applet (first row) or slightly positive (growing
oscillation) for the other rows.