A new approach with piecewise-constant arguments to approximate and numerical solutions of oscillatory problems

This paper is devoted to the development of a novel approximate and numerical method for the solutions of linear and non-linear oscillatory systems, which are common in engineering dynamics. The original physical information included in the governing equations of motion is mostly transferred into the approximate and numerical solutions. Therefore, the approximate and numerical solutions generated by the present method reflect more accurately the characteristics of the motion of the systems. Furthermore, the solutions derived are continuous everywhere with good accuracy and convergence in comparing with Runge-Kutta method. An approximate solution is developed for a linear oscillatory problem and compared with its corresponding exact solution. A non-linear oscillatory problem is also solved numerically and compared with the solutions of Runge-Kutta method. Both the graphical and numerical comparisons are provided in the paper. The accuracy of the approximate and numerical solutions can be controlled as desired by the number of terms in the Taylor series and the value of a single parameter used in the present work. Formulae for numerical computation in solving various linear and non-linear oscillatory problems by the new approach are provided in the paper. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.