M. Tech. Mathematical Technology. / Discusses the main problems in terms of how to derive mathematical models for a free, a forced and a damped spring pendulum and determining numerical solutions using a computer algebra system (CAS), because exact analytical solutions are not obvious. Hence this mini-dissertation mainly deals with how to derive mathematical models for the spring pendulum using the Euler-Lagrange equations both in the Cartesian and polar coordinate systems and finding solutions numerically. Derivation of the equations of motion are done for the free, forced and damped cases of the spring pendulum. The main objectives of this mini-dissertation are: firstly, to derive the equations of motion governing the oscillatory and rotational components of the spring pendulum for the free, the forced and damped cases of the spring pendulum ; secondly, to solve these equations numerically by writing the equations as initial value problems (IVP); and finally, to introduce a novel way of incorporating nonlinear damping into the Euler-Lagrange equations of motion as introduced by Joubert, Shatalov and Manzhirov (2013, [20]) for the spring pendulum and interpreting the numerical solutions using CAS-generated graphics.

This report provides an introduction to geometric mechanics, which seeks to model the behavior of physical mechanical systems using differential geometric objects. In addition to its elegance as a method of representation, this formulation also admits the application of powerful analytical techniques from geometry as an aid to understanding these systems. In particular, it reveals the fundamental role that symplectic geometry plays in mechanics (something which is not at all obvious from the traditional Newtonian formulation), and in the case of systems exhibiting symmetry, leads to an elucidation of conservation and reduction laws which can be used to simplify the analysis of these systems. The contribution here is primarily one of exposition. Geometric mechanics was developed as an aid to understanding physics, and we have endeavored throughout to highlight the physical principles at work behind the mathematical formalism. In particular, we show quite explicitly the entire development of mechanics from first principles, beginning with Newton's laws of motion and culminating in the geometric reformulation of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics. Self-contained presentations of this entire range of material do not appear to be common in either the physics or the mathematics literature, but we feel very strongly that this is essential in order to understand how the more abstract mathematical developments that follow actually relate to the real world. We have also attempted to make many of the proofs contained herein more explicit than they appear in the standard references, both as an aid in understanding and simply to make them easier to follow, and several of them are original where we feel that their presentation in the literature was unacceptably opaque (this occurs primarily in the presentation of the geometric formulation of Lagrangian mechanics and the appendix on symplectic geometry). Finally, we point out that the fields of geometric mechanics and symplectic geometry are vast, and one could not hope to get more than a fragmentary glimpse of them in a single work, which necessiates some parsimony in the presentation of material. The subject matter covered herein was chosen because it is of particular interest from an applied or engineering perspective in addition to its mathematical appeal. / text

The Lie theory of extended groups is a practical tool in the analysis of differential equations, particularly in the construction of solutions. A formalism of the Lie theory is given and contrasted with Noether's theorem which plays a prominent role in the analysis of differential equations derivable from a Lagrangian. The relationship between the Lie and Noether approach to differential equations is investigated. The standard separation of Lie point symmetries into Noetherian and nonNoetherian symmetries is shown to be irrelevant within the context of nonlocality. This also emphasises the role played by nonlocal symmetries in such an approach. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1997.

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This paper was presented in WCSMO-9, Shizuoka.

Three problems are being investigated in this thesis. The first two relate to the modelling and analysis of martensitic phase transitions, while the third is concerned with some mathematical tools used in this setting. After a short introduction (Chapter 1) and overviews of the calculus of variations and martensitic phase transformations (Chapter 2), the research part of this thesis is divided into three chapters. We show in Chapter 3 that for the two wells $\mathrm{SO}(3)U$ and $\mathrm{SO}(3)V$ to be rank-one connected, where the $3\times 3$ symmetric positive definite $U$ and $V$ have the same eigenvalues, it is necessary and sufficient that $\mathrm{det}(U-V)=0$, a result that does not hold in higher dimensions. Using this criterion and a result of Gurtin, formulae for the twinning plane and the shearing vector are obtained, which yield an extremely simple condition for the occurrence of so-called compound twins. Our results also provide a simple classification of the twinning mode of the two wells by looking at the crystallographic properties of the eigenvectors of the difference $U-V$. As an illustration, we apply our results to cubic-to-tetra gonal,tetragonal-to-monoclinic and cubic-to-monoclinic transitions. Chapter 4 focuses on the mathematical analysis of biaxial loading experiments in martensite, more particularly on how hysteresis relates to metastability. These experiments were carried out by Chu and James and their mathematical treatment was initiated by Ball, Chu and James. Experimentally it is observed that a homogeneous deformation $y_1(x)= U_1x$ is the stable state for `small' loads while $y_2(x)=U_2x$ is stable for `large' loads. A model was proposed by Ball, Chu and James which, for a certain intermediate range of loads, predicts crucially that $y_1(x)=U_1x$ remains metastable i.e., a local - as opposed to global - minimiser of the energy). This result explains convincingly the hysteresis that is observed experimentally. It is easy to get an upper bound for when metastability finishes. However, it was also noticed that this bound (the Schmid Law) may not be sharp, though this required some geometric conditions on the sample. In this chapter, we rigorously justify the Ball-Chu-James model by means of De Giorgi's $\Gamma$-convergence, establish some properties of local minimisers of the (limiting) energy and prove the metastability result mentioned above. An important part of the chapter is then devoted to establishing which geometric conditions are necessary and sufficient for the counter-example to the Schmid Law to apply. Finally, Chapter 5 investigates the structure of the solutions to the two-well problem. Restricting ourselves to the subset $K=\{H\}\cup \mathrm{SO}(2)V \subset\mathrm{SO}(2)U\cup\mathrm{SO}(2)V$ and assuming the two wells to be compatible, we let $T_1$ and $T_2$ denote the two (not necessarily distinct) twins of $H$ on $\mathrm{SO}(2)V$ and ask the following question: if $\nu_x$ is a non-trivial gradient Young measure almost everywhere supported on $K$, does its support necessarily contain a pair of rank-one connected matrices on a set of positive measure? Although we do not provide a solution for the general case, we show that this is true whenever (a) $\nu_x\equiv \nu$ is homogeneous and $\mathrm{supp}\nu\cap \mathrm{SO}(2)V$ is connected, (b) $\nu_x\equiv \nu$ is homogeneous and $T_1=T_2$ i.e., when the two wells are trivially rank-one connected) or (c) $\mathrm{supp}\nu_x \subset F$ a.e., for some finite set $F$. We also establish a more general case provided a strong `rigidity' conjecture holds.

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Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:27:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-02-03Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:07:05Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 flores_apx_me_rcla.pdf: 626396 bytes, checksum: bbb4081c4e9cec255b879824f0d39683 (MD5) / O principal objetivo deste trabalho é o estudo da teoria do Cálculo de Variações com ênfase na Equação de Euler, que trata de uma condição necessária para uma função ser extremo de um funcional. Existe uma grande variedade de problemas, mas neste trabalho trataremos de problemas com fronteiras fixas, tempo final livre, estado final livre, funcional dependente de mais de uma função e problemas com alguns tipos de restrições. Dois problemas do Cálculo de uma variável e um exemplo de controle ótimo são estudados para ilustrar a aplicabilidade do Cálculo Variacional / The main purpose of this work is the study of the theory of the Calculus of Variations, with emphasis on the Euler equation, that is a necessary condition for a function to be an extreme of a functional. There are a large variety of problems but we will consider the problem of xed boundary, free nal time, free nal state, functionals that contain several independent functions and problems with some constraints. Two problems of the Calculus of one variable and an example of optimal control problem are studied to illustrate the applicability of Variational Calculus

Le transport optimal trouve un nombre grandissant d’applications, dont celle qui nous intéresse dans ce travail, l'interpolation d’images. Malgré cet essor, la résolution numérique de ce transport soulève des difficultés et le développement d’algorithmes efficaces reste un problème d'actualité, en particulier pour des images de grande taille, comme on en trouve dans certains domaines (météorologie,...).Nous nous intéressons dans ce travail à la formulation de Benamou et Brenier, qui ont placé le problème dans un contexte de mécanique des milieux continus en ajoutant une dimension temporelle. Leur formulation consiste en la minimisation d’une fonctionnelle sur un espace des contraintes contenant une condition de divergence nulle, et les algorithmes existants utilisent une projection sur cet espace.A l'opposé, dans cette thèse, nous définissons et mettons en oeuvre des algorithmes travaillant directement dans cet espace.En effet, nous montrons que la fonctionnelle a de meilleures propriétés de convexité sur celui-ci.Pour travailler dans cet espace, nous considérons trois représentations des champs de vecteurs à divergence nulle. La première est une base d’ondelettes à divergence nulle. Cette formulation a été implémentée numériquement dans le cas des ondelettes périodiques à l'aide d'une descente de gradient, menant à un algorithme de convergence lente mais validant la faisabilité de la méthode. La deuxième approche consiste à représenter les vecteurs à divergence nulle par leur fonction de courant munie d'un relèvement des conditions au bord et la troisième à utiliser la décomposition de Helmholtz-Hodge.Nous montrons de plus que dans le cas unidimensionnel en espace, en utilisant l’une ou l'autre de ces deux dernières représentations, nous nous ramenons à la résolution d’une équation de type courbure minimale sur chaque ligne de niveau du potentiel, munie des conditions de Dirichlet appropriées.La minimisation de la fonctionnelle est alors assurée par un algorithme primal-dual pour problèmes convexes de Chambolle-Pock, qui peut aisément être adapté à nos différentes formulations et est facilement parallèlisable, menant à une implémentation performante et simple.En outre, nous démontrons les gains significatifs de nos algorithmes par rapport à l’état de l’art et leur application sur des images de taille réelle. / Optimal transport has an increasing number of applications, including image interpolation, which we study in this work. Yet, numerical resolution is still challenging, especially for real size images found in applications.We are interested in the Benamou and Brenier formulation, which rephrases the problem in the context of fluid mechanics by adding a time dimension.It is based on the minimization of a functional on a constraint space, containing a divergence free constraint and the existing algorithms require a projection onto the divergence-free constraint at each iteration.In this thesis, we propose to work directly in the space of constraints for the functional to minimize.Indeed, we prove that the functional we consider has better convexity properties on the set of constraints.To work in this space, we use three different divergence-free vector decompositions. The first in which we got interested is a divergence-free wavelet base. This formulation has been implemented numerically using periodic wavelets and a gradient descent, which lead to an algorithm with a slow convergence but validating the practicability of the method.First, we represented the divergence-free vector fields by their stream function, then we studied the Helmholtz-Hodge decompositions. We prove that both these representations lead to a new formulation of the problem, which in 1D + time, is equivalent to the resolution of a minimal surface equation on every level set of the potential, equipped with appropriate Dirichlet boundary conditions.We use a primal dual algorithm for convex problems developed by Chambolle and Pock, which can be easily adapted to our formulations and can be easily sped up on parallel architectures. Therefore our method will also provide a fast algorithm, simple to implement.Moreover, we show numerical experiments which demonstrate that our algorithms are faster than state of the art methods and efficient with real-sized images.

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