MA2051 - Ordinary Differential Equations
Matlab - Solve a second-order equation numerically

< P> In vector notation, this system has the form , where

Now use an editor to create a M-file named frcdsprg.m for this vector system :

% frcdsprg.m - new version
% x'' + 2x' + x = sin( 0.9 t ) written as the system
%       x' = v,    v' = -x - 2v + sin( 0.9 t)
% y(1) is x, y(2) is v.

function yprime = frcdsprg( t, y )
yprime(1) = y(2);     % x' = v in terms of y's
yprime(2) = -y(1) - 2*y(2) + sin( 0.9*t );    % v' = -x ... in terms of y's

The following sequence of commands will solve this system with initial conditions x(0) = 1, v(0) = 2 for .

y0 = [1; 2];
[t, y] = wrk4( 'frcdsprg', 0, 30, y0, 0.2 );

Type [t,y] (without a semicolon). Three columns of numbers will fly by; the first column is t, the second column is y(1) = x(t), and the third column is y(2) = v(t). In the above instructions, notice that you are solving both of the first-order equations at the same time. The initial data is specified in y0 = [1;2], and the time step by 0.2.

The following commands will plot x(t) and v(t) again st t and annotate the plot:

plot(t,y(:,1),'-');                        % plots x(t) with lines
hold on;                                   % holds the old plot
plot(t,y(:,2),'.');                        % plots v(t) with dots
title(' x" + 2 x'' + x = sin(0.9 t)  ');   % adds a title ('' prints as ')
xlabel(' time ');
ylabel(' position and velocity  ');        % label the axes
text(15,1.0,' ...  velocity  ');           % put text at (15,1.0)
text(15,1.5,' --- position ');             % put text at (15,1.5)

Note that y(:,1) refers to the first column of y (which is x(t)) and y(:,2) refers to the second column of y (which is ). To make a new plot, type hold off.

The following commands will plot v(t) against x(t) (instead of t), producing a phase plane plot of this nonautonomous system:

plot(y(:,1),y(:,2),'.');                                  % plots x and v
title(' Phase Plane:  x" + 2 x'' + x = sin(0.9 t)   ');   % adds a title
xlabel(' position ');
ylabel(' velocity ');                                     % label the axes

To control the axis limits, type axis( [ -0.75 1 -1 1.5] ); the graph will show ``x'' values from -0.75 to 1 and ``y'' values from - 1 to 1.5. Type help axis for more information.

Alternatively, to get a phase plane plot directly for an autonomous system, type pplane and enter your equations into the text box that appears.