Partial Differential Equations in Engineering Problems

Requiring only an elementary knowledge of ordinary differential equations, this concise text is dedicated to helping engineering students solve problems in their field involving partial differential equations. No emphasis is placed upon questions of existence, uniqueness, and convergence; the treatment’s focus remains firmly on the practical solution of partial differential equations. The first chapter derives some of the more common partial differential equations associated with such phenomena as vibration, heat flow, electricity and elasticity. Subsequent chapters examine and apply the techniques of Fourier analysis to these equations, and then extend the discussion to the Fourier integral. The final chapters explore Legendre, Bessel, and Mathieu functions as well as the general structure of differential operators. For undergraduate engineering students. AUTHOR: Kenneth S. Miller received his PhD from Columbia University, taught at New York University, and was a Senior Research Associate at Columbia’s Electronic Research Laboratory from 1964 to 1989. His numerous books on applied mathematics include An Introduction to Vector Stochastic Processes and Some Eclectic Matrix Theory.