ABSTRACT
Many physical models can be described by an ordinary differential equation, shortly ODE. In this chapter we show how to analyze in this way a massspring-damper system. The corresponding equation is
m¨ + c˙ + h = F (9.1)
where represents the displacement of the mass, c, the damping, and h, the spring constant. By F we indicate the sum of all the external forces that act on the mass. For more explanations on such a system see Subsection 11.5. We assume the following constants:
m = 2 kg, c = 1.4 N · s ·m−1, h = 0.1 ·m−1
It is shown how to integrate Equation 9.1 with solvers provided by MATLAB and several methods of passing parameters to the solvers are discussed. A short theoretical treatment of ODEs follows, for those who want to get more insight. At the end, the chapter contains a short treatment of stiff differential equations.
