ABSTRACT
Almost all physical dynamic systems are nonlinear. The superposition techniques the authors used are not applicable in cases in which the systems under investigation are nonlinear. It is known that most components found in physical systems have nonlinear characteristics. In practice, the authors found some devices that have moderate nonlinear characteristics, or the nonlinear properties of these devices may occur if the devices are driven into certain nonlinear regions. In these cases modeling these strongly nonlinear devices by linear systems can be valid only for a limited range of operation. The chapter discusses the four ways to analyze nonlinear systems: analytical solution to the nonlinear system can be found under consideration; software application tools can be used to compute numerical solutions for specific parameters in a nonlinear system; equations describing the nonlinear system can be numerically solved using computers; and the nonlinear system can be replaced by a linear system that behaves nearly the same as the nonlinear system.
