Energy Methods In Dynamics

Energy Methods in Dynamics

Energy Methods in Dynamics is a textbook based on the lectures given by the first author at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Its aim is to help students acquire both a good grasp of the first principles from which the governing equations can be derived, and the adequate mathematical methods for their solving. Its distinctive features, as seen from the title, lie in the systematic and intensive use of Hamilton's variational principle and its generalizations for deriving the governing equations of conservative and dissipative mechanical systems, and also in providing the direct variational-asymptotic analysis, whenever available, of the energy and dissipation for the solution of these equations. It demonstrates that many well-known methods in dynamics like those of Lindstedt-Poincare, Bogoliubov-Mitropolsky, Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM), Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin (WKB), and Whitham are derivable from this variational-asymptotic analysis. This second edition includes the solutions to all exercises as well as some new materials concerning amplitude and slope modulations of nonlinear dispersive waves.

Weighted Energy Methods in Fluid Dynamics and Elasticity

The Energy Method, Stability, and Nonlinear Convection

The writing of this book was begun during the academic year 1984-1985 while I was a visiting Associate Professor at the University of Wyoming. I am extremely grateful to the people there for their help, in particular to Dick Ewing, Jack George and Robert Gunn, and to Ken Gross, who is now at the University of Vermont. A major part of the first draft of this book was written while I was a visiting Professor at the University of South Carolina during the academic year 1988-1989. I am indebted to the people there for their help, in one way or another, particularly to Ron DeVore, Steve Dilworth, Bob Sharpley, Dave Walker, and especially to the chairman of the Mathematics Department at the University of South Carolina, Colin Bennett. I also wish to express my sincere gratitude to Ray Ogden and Profes sor I.N. Sneddon, F.R.S., both of Glasgow University, for their help over a number of years. I also wish to record my thanks to Ron Hills and Paul Roberts, F.R.S., for giving me a copy of their paper on the Boussinesq ap proximation prior to publication and for allowing me to describe their work here. I should like to thank my Ph.D. student Geoff McKay for spotting several errors and misprints in an early draft. Finally, I am very grateful to an anonymous reviewer for several pertinent suggestions regarding the energy-Casimir method.