SYNCHRONIZATION OF OSCILLATIONS AND PROPAGATION OF EXCITATIONS IN CIRCULAR AND LINEAR ARRAYS OF COUPLED CSTRS

Synchronizations of oscillatory regimes of the Belousov-Zhabotinskii ( BZ) reaction in a circular array of three identical CSTRs coupled via symmetric passive diffusion/convection mass transfer were studied expe rimentally. Stability of symmetric and asymmetric phase-shifted oscill atory regimes with respect to variations of the coupling strength amon g the reaction cells was examined. The all-in-phase regime was found t o be the only regime stable over the entire range of coupling strength values. Phase-shifted oscillatory regimes were found to be stable onl y within a narrow interval of very low coupling strength values. Spont aneous transitions of the phase-shifted regimes to the synchronized mo de due to stochastic fluctuations of the coupling strength were observ ed. Numerical simulations with the four-variable Oregonator based mode l of the BZ reaction qualitatively confirmed the experimental findings . Propagation of an excitable response to periodic pulsed stimulations in a linear three-array of coupled chemical excitators (Belousov-Zhab otinskii reaction) was studied in dependence on the coupling strength, on the excitability level of the reaction mixture, and on the period and amplitude of pulse stimulation. Regimes of complete and partial pr opagation of the excitable response and the regimes of partial and com plete propagation failure were observed. Numerical simulations predict qualitatively well excitatory regimes observed in experiments.