Nonlinear algebraic equations (NAEs) occur in many areas of science and engineering. The process of solving these NAEs is generally difficult, from finding a good initial guess that leads to a desired solution to deciding on convergence criteria for the approximate solution. In practice, Newton's method is the only robust general-purpose method for solving a system of NAEs. Many variants of Newton's method exist. However, it is generally impossible to know a priori which variant of Newton's method will be effective for a given problem.<p>Many high-quality software libraries are available for the numerical solution of NAEs. However, the user usually has little control over many aspects of what the library does. For example, the user may not be able to easily switch between direct and indirect methods for the linear algebra. This thesis describes a problem-solving environment (PSE) called pythNon for studying the effects (e.g., performance) of different strategies for solving systems of NAEs. It provides the researcher, teacher, or student with a flexible environment for rapid prototyping and numerical experiments. In pythNon, users can directly influence the solution process on many levels, e.g., investigation of the effects of termination criteria and/or globalization strategies. In particular, to show the power, flexibility, and ease of use of the pythNon PSE, this thesis also describes the development of a novel forcing-term strategy for approximating the Newton direction efficiently in the pythNon PSE.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-03262007-113126 |
| Date | 26 March 2007 |
| Creators | Ter, Thian-Peng |
| Contributors | Spiteri, Raymond J., Mould, David, Horsch, Michael C., Szmigielski, Jacek |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-03262007-113126/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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