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Re: Broken DSolve + Piecewise forcing function

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg59593] Re: [mg59566] Broken DSolve + Piecewise forcing function
  • From: Pratik Desai <pdesai1 at umbc.edu>
  • Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 03:26:22 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <200508120409.AAA11249@smc.vnet.net>
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Chris Chiasson wrote:

>Dear MathGroup,
>Somehow, I have managed to feed DSolve a system of equations to which
>it seems to produce an unphysical answer. The problem seems to
>originate from the forcing function, which is Piecewise defined. I
>have correctly solved the equations with NDSolve. I have also
>correctly solved the equations using a Fourier series approximation to
>the forcing function and DSolve. All that remains is to figure out
>what is going wrong with the Piecewise forcing function and the DSolve
>command.
>The notebook gives the full problem statement and some explanation on
>the origins of the equation system.
>http://chrischiasson.com/MathGroup/BrokenDSolvePiecewise.nb
>Please help me figure out what is wrong.
>Thank you for your time,
>  
>
Wow! I just realized how my control class would have been a little 
easier, if I had known mathematica then
There are two things that I see

1. When you put your equation in LTI form would it not be better to put 
it in State Space form
dx/dt=A.x
we know the solution to this is
x= MatrixExp[A].x(0)
Hence you can work around actually solving the equation using DSolve 
with piecewise forcing functions. Then its just a case of some algebraic 
manipulation to get x.

2. When you calculate your series solution, may be you can use laplace 
transform, since both of your components of the series are in t.

Atleast that is what I can make out from your code, again I may be 
completely wrong and making a fool out of myself :-)

Hope this helps

Pratik Desai

-- 
Pratik Desai
Graduate Student
UMBC
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Phone: 410 455 8134



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