Matlab® in Quality Assurance Sciences

7

Ordinary differential equations and tools for their solution

Abstract

: Differential equations play an important role in science and technology in general and in product quality enhancement in particular. Many processes and phenomena in the natural sciences can be described using differential equations. They are used to simulate, analyze and define the best product parameters. These equations are often unsolvable analytically, in which case a numerical approach is used, but no single universal numerical method exists. MATLAB® provides tools called solvers for this purpose, which are used to provide solutions for two groups of differential equations: ordinary – ODE, and partial – PDE. The latter group is complicated for beginners and is rarely ...