This paper investigates bifurcation and chaos in transverse motion of axially accelerating viscoelastic beams. The Kelvin model is used to describe the viscoelastic property of the beam material, and the Lagrangian strain is used to account for geometric nonlinearity due to small but finite stretching of the beam. The transverse motion is governed by a nonlinear partial-differential equation. The Galerkin method is applied to truncate the partial-differential equation into a set of ordinary differential equations. When the Galerkin truncation is based on the eigenfunctions of a linear non-translating beam subjected to the same boundary constraints, a computation technique is proposed by regrouping nonlinear terms. The scheme can be easily implemented in practical computations. When the transport speed is assumed to be a constant mean speed with small harmonic variations, the Poincare′ map is numerically calculated based on 4-term Galerkin truncation to identify dynamical behaviors. The bifurcation diagrams are present for varying one of the following parameter: the axial speed fluctuation amplitude, the mean axial speed and the beam viscosity coefficient, while other parameters are unchanged.