SUMMARYChaotic behaviour of physical systems has been observed experimentally and numerically. It has also been observed that chaotic systems are extremely sensitive to initial conditions. In this paper, the ecacy of using dierent numerical integration schemes, some of which are preferred in ®nite element software for transient dynamics, is discussed using techniques to detect chaotic behaviour such as Poincare maps, FFTs, the Lyapunov exponent and fractal dimensions. #