solve and plot a system of nonlinear 2nd order differential equations

hi there,

I'm trying to plot a graph of against with the following equations of motion:

I've tried dsolve and ode45 yet there always seems to be some problems. I think ode45 might work better because apparently it would be easier to plot the graph by using some numerical method?

Here's my failed attempt to solve it: (I just set some variables to be 1 to make the problem easier here)

syms theta(t) phi(t) psi(t) C
dtheta = diff(theta , t);
d2theta = diff(theta , t , 2);
dphi = diff(phi , t);
%dpsi = diff(psi , t);

%alpha = C * (dpsi + dphi * cos(theta));
%beta = alpha * cos(theta) + dphi * (sin(theta))^2;
alpha = 1;
beta = 1;
dpsi = 1;

eqn1 = dphi == (beta - alpha * cos(theta)) / (sin(theta))^2 ; %equations of motion
eqn2 = d2theta == (dphi*(dphi * cos(theta) - alpha)+1)*sin(theta) ; %equations of motion


eqns = [eqn1 , eqn2];
%cond = [dpsi == 1];

[thetaSol(t) phiSol(t)] = dsolve(eqns)

Thanks a lot for your help and time in advance!

Cheers,

Jane

[Walter Roberson]

There are at least four solutions to that.

Two of them are pretty abstract, involving integrals of roots of an equation -- not closed form solutions but rather a description of what properties the solution function would have to have.

The other two solutions are closed form:

theta(t) = arctan(sqrt(2*diff(phi(t), t) - 1)/diff(phi(t), t), (-diff(phi(t), t) + 1)/diff(phi(t), t))

and the same except the negative of the first parameter.

MATLAB is not powerful enough to arrive at these solutions.

[Walter Roberson]

Have a look at odeFunction() and in particular the first example. It shows you the functions you need to use in order to convert the symbolic forms into something you can call with ode45.

Use the options structure created by odeset to designate an OutputFcn . You might want to use @odephas2 to construct a 2D phase plot, perhaps.

Answer 1

[Teja Muppirala]

If you just need a plot and not a closed-form solution, then I'd recommend just using ODE45 without worrying about symbolic stuff. This is an example of how to solve this using ODE45 for initial conditions psi(0) = 0, theta(0) = 0, thetadot(0) = 1 over the time span [0 10].

function doODE
a = 1; % alpha
b = 1; % beta

% Define variables as:
% Y(1): phi
% Y(2): theta
% Y(3): thetadot

ic = [0;0;1]; % Pick some initial Conditions 
tspan = [0 10];
[tout, yout] = ode45(@deriv,tspan,ic);

subplot(1,3,1), plot(tout,yout(:,1));  title('psi(t)')
subplot(1,3,2), plot(tout,yout(:,2)); title('theta(t)')
subplot(1,3,3), plot(yout(:,1),yout(:,2)); title('theta vs psi')

    function dY = deriv(t,Y)
        
        dY = [dpsi(Y(2)); ...
            Y(3); ...
            [dpsi(Y(2))*(dpsi(Y(2))*cos(Y(2))-a)+1]*sin(Y(2)) ];
    end

    function dp = dpsi(th)
        
        dp = (b - a*cos(th))./(sin(th)).^2 ;
        if isnan(dp) % Need to take care at theta = 0
            dp = 0.5;
        end
    end
end

[Zhen Zhen]

Thank you very much! it worked well!

I was wondering, if now I need to use the real alpha and beta (alpha = C * (dpsi + dphi * cos(theta)); beta = alpha * cos(theta) + dphi * (sin(theta))^2;) I know they are constants. Where should I put them in the code?

And if I need to print one more constant (say, E = 0.5 * (Y(3))^2 + (Y(1))^2 * (sin(Y(2)))^2) +0.5* a^2 + cos(Y(2)) ) where should I put it?

Thanks so much for your help!

Answer 2

[Lewis Fer]

Hello, I am having troubles solving a system of second order nonlinear equations with boundary conditions using MATALB

Here is the equations:

f''(t)=3*f(t)*g(t) +5;

g''(t)=-4f(t)*g(t)+7;

the boundary conditions are: f'(0)=0 et g'(o)=5;

g(0)=3 et f'(2)=f(2)