Approximation Methods in Engineering and Science covers fundamental
and advanced topics in three areas: Dimensional Analysis, Continued
Fractions, and Stability Analysis of the Mathieu Differential Equation.
Throughout the book, a strong emphasis is given to concepts and methods
used in everyday calculations. Dimensional analysis is a crucial need
for every engineer and scientist to be able to do experiments on scaled
models and use the results in real world applications. Knowing that most
nonlinear equations have no analytic solution, the power series solution
is assumed to be the first approach to derive an approximate solution.
However, this book will show the advantages of continued fractions and
provides a systematic method to develop better approximate solutions in
continued fractions. It also shows the importance of determining
stability chart of the Mathieu equation and reviews and compares several
approximate methods for that. The book provides the energy-rate method
to study the stability of parametric differential equations that
generates much better approximate solutions.