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.