This paper deals with perturbed dynamical systems of the form:
−u ̈+u=∇V(u)+ε∇uW(t,u)
where u(t)∈Rn(n⩾1). By means of a variational approach the existence of multibump homoclinics is proved under general assumptions on the Melnikov function. As a particular case, if (W; u) is T-periodic, the existence of approximate and complete Bernoulli shift structures is proved. An application to partial differential equations is also given.
