In wide gap Spherical Couette Flow a complex route into chaos can be o
bserved experimentally. By increasing the Reynolds number Re=R-1(2) om
ega/v with the angular velocity omega of the driving inner sphere (rad
ius R-1) the flow bifurcates laminar axisymmetric basic flow to the pe
riodic motion of non-axisymmetric secondary spiral waves for relative
gap width beta=R2-R1/R1 greater than or equal to 0.3, with R-2 as the
radius of the outer spherical shell [1]. In the present study a relati
ve gap width of beta=0.5 is chosen. The spiral waves exist over a wide
range of the Reynolds number. In this range a change in shape and per
iodicity can be detected by visualization with small aluminum flakes a
nd also measured by Laser Doppler Measurement (LDV) technique. At high
Reynolds numbers, the flaw undergoes a bifurcation to low-dimensional
chaotic motion before it eventually becomes turbulent. The dynamic be
haviour is discussed by spectral bifurcation diagrams, reconstructed a
ttractors and their Lyapunov exponents as a quantitative parameter. Th
ese quantities are calculated from the measured LDV time series.