Applied Mathematics and Computation 151 (2004) 287–292

www.elsevier.com/locate/amc

The homotopy perturbation method

for nonlinear oscillators with discontinuities
Ji-Huan He
College of Science, Shanghai Donghua University, 1882 Yan’an Xilu Road, P.O. Box 471,
Shanghai 200051, People’s Republic of China

Abstract
In the paper, the homotopy perturbation method is applied to the nonlinear oscil-
lators with discontinuities. Only one iteration leads to high accuracy of the solutions.
Ó 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Homotopy perturbation method; Nonlinear oscillator

1. Introduction

Considerable attention has been directed towards the analytical solutions

for nonlinear equations without possible small parameters. The traditional
perturbation methods have many shortcomings, and they are not valid for
strongly nonlinear equations. To overcome the shortcomings, many new
techniques have been appeared in open literature, for example, d-perturbation
method [1–3], homotopy analysis method [4,5], variational iteration method
[6], bookkeeping parameter perturbation method [7], just to name a few, a
review on some recently developed nonlinear analytical method can be found
in details in Ref. [8].
In this paper, we will show how to solve nonlinear oscillators with discon-
tinuous terms by the homotopy perturbation method, which yields a very rapid
convergence of the solution series, in the most cases only one iteration leads to
high accuracy of the solution, providing an effective and convenient mathe-
matical tool for nonlinear equations.

E-mail address: jhhe@dhu.edu.cn (J.-H. He).

0096-3003/$ - see front matter Ó 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0096-3003(03)00341-2
288 J.-H. He / Appl. Math. Comput. 151 (2004) 287–292

2. Solution procedures

Let us consider the general nonlinear oscillators with discontinuities [9]

u00 þ u þ f ðu; u0 ; u00 Þ ¼ 0; ð1Þ
0
with initial conditions uð0Þ ¼ A and u ð0Þ ¼ 0.
Here f is a known discontinuous function.
In case of no small parameter in the equation, the traditional perturbation
methods cannot be applied. Supposing that the angular frequency of the os-
cillator is x, and we choose the trial function u ¼ A cos xt, so the linearized
oscillator has the following form
u00 þ x2 u ¼ 0: ð2Þ
We, therefore, can establish the following homotopy:
u00 þ x2 u ¼ p½ðx2  1Þu  f ; p 2 ½0; 1: ð3Þ
The homotopy parameter p always changes from zero to unity. In case p ¼ 0,
Eq. (3) becomes the linearized equation (Eq. (2)) and when it is one, Eq. (3)
turns out to be the original one (Eq. (1)).
In view of homotopy perturbation method [10–12], we use the homotopy
parameter p to expand the solution:
u ¼ u0 þ pu1 þ p2 u2 þ


ð4Þ
Substituting Eq. (4) into Eq. (3), and equating the terms with the identical
powers of p, we can obtain a series of linear equations, and we write only the
first two linear equations:
u000 þ x2 u0 ¼ 0; u0 ð0Þ ¼ A; u00 ð0Þ ¼ 0; ð5Þ
u001 þ x2 u1 ¼ ðx2  1Þu0  f ; u1 ð0Þ ¼ 0; u01 ð0Þ ¼ 0: ð6Þ
The solution of Eq. (5) is u0 ðtÞ ¼ A cos xt. Substituting u0 into Eq. (6), we
obtain a differential equation for u1 , no secular terms in u1 requires that
Z T
cos xt½ðx2  1Þu0  f  dt ¼ 0; T ¼ 2p=x: ð7Þ
0

As we will see in the forthcoming illustrative examples, we always stop at the

first-order approximation, for it is always of high accuracy [13], and the ob-
tained approximate solution is valid for the whole solution domain.

3. Example

Consider Eq. [9]

u00 þ u ¼ eujuj; uð0Þ ¼ A; u0 ð0Þ ¼ 0: ð8Þ
 J.-H. He / Appl. Math. Comput. 151 (2004) 287–292 289

Here the discontinuous function f ¼ eujuj. From Eq. (7), we can determine the
angular frequency easily.
Z T
cos xt½ðx2  1Þ cos xt  e cos xtj cos xtj dt ¼ 0: ð9Þ
0

Noting that j cos xtj ¼ cos xt when p=2 6 xt 6 p=2, and j cos xtj ¼
 cos xt when p=2 6 xt 6 3p=2, so we write Eq. (9) in the form
Z p=2 Z 3p=2
½ðx2  1Þ cos2 t  e cos3 t dt þ ½ðx2  1Þ cos2 t þ e cos3 t dt ¼ 0:
p=2 p=2

ð10Þ
From the above equation, we can easily find that
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
8
x ¼ 1 þ eA: ð11Þ
3p
We re-write Eq. (6) in the form:
8
> p p
< Aðx2  1Þ cos xt  e cos2 xt;  6 xt 6 ;
u001 þ x2 u1 ¼ 2 2 ð12Þ
> p 3p
: Aðx2  1Þ cos xt þ e cos2 xt; 6 xt 6 ;
2 2
with initial conditions u1 ð0Þ ¼ 0 and u01 ð0Þ ¼ 0.
The solution of Eq. (12) reads
8
> 1 2 e
>
> 2 Aðx  1Þt sin xt þ 6x2 ðcos 2xt  cos xtÞ
>
>
>
> e p p
<  2 ð1  cos xtÞ;  6 xt 6 ;
u1 ¼ 1 2x 2 2
> Aðx2  1Þt sin xt  e ðcos 2xt  cos xtÞ
>
>
> 6x2
>2
>
>
: þ e ð1  cos xtÞ; p 3p
6 xt 6 :
2x2 2 2
ð13Þ
We, therefore, obtain the first-order approximation by setting p ¼ 1:
u ¼ u0 þ u1
8
> 1
>
> A cos xt þ Aðx2  1Þt sin xt
>
> 2
>
> e e p p
< þ 2 ðcos 2xt  cos xtÞ  2 ð1  cos xtÞ;  6 xt 6 ;
¼ 6x 2x 2 2
> 1 2
>
> A cos xt þ Aðx  1Þt sin xt
>
> 2
>
>
:  e ðcos 2xt  cos xtÞt þ e ð1  cos xtÞ; p 6 xt 6 3p ;
6x2 2x2 2 2
ð14Þ
where the angular frequency x is defined as Eq. (11).
290 J.-H. He / Appl. Math. Comput. 151 (2004) 287–292

To compare with traditional perturbation solution, we write NayfehÕs result

[9]:

4
u ¼ A cos 1 þ eA t þ


ð15Þ
3p
which is valid only for small parameter.

4. Further discussion

The above solution procedure is only valid for first-order approximate so-
lution, as pointed out in Ref. [14] that secular terms will arise from ui (i P 2).
To eliminate the secular terms in higher order approximate, we construct a
homotopy in the following form
u00 þ 1
u þ pf ðu; u0 ; u00 Þ ¼ 0: ð16Þ
Applying the modified Lindstedt–Poincare method [15–17], we also expand the
coefficient, 1, in the middle term in a series form
1 ¼ x2 þ px1 þ p2 x2 þ


; ð17Þ
where xi can be identified in view of no secular terms in ui . The coefficient is
such expanded so that the initial approximate solution u0 ¼ A cos xt features
the main characteristic of the nonlinear oscillator.
Sometimes the linear term is omitted in the equation, for example
u00 þ bu3 þ eujuj ¼ 0; uð0Þ ¼ A; u0 ð0Þ ¼ 0 ð18Þ
or in more general form
u00 þ f ðu; u0 ; u00 Þ ¼ 0; uð0Þ ¼ A; u0 ð0Þ ¼ 0; ð19Þ
where f is a known discontinuous function. In such case, we recover the linear
term by multiplying zero, and construct the following homotopy
u00 þ 0
u þ pf ðu; u0 ; u00 Þ ¼ 0: ð20Þ
The zero in the middle term is expanded also in the series form:
0 ¼ x2 þ px1 þ p2 x2 þ


ð21Þ
To make the problem clear, we re-write Eq. (18) in the form
u00 þ 0
u þ pðbu3 þ eujujÞ ¼ 0: ð22Þ
Substituting Eq. (4) and Eq. (21) into Eq. (22), and collecting terms of the same
power of p, gives
u000 þ x2 u0 ¼ 0; u0 ð0Þ ¼ A; u00 ð0Þ ¼ 0; ð23Þ
 J.-H. He / Appl. Math. Comput. 151 (2004) 287–292 291

u001 þ x2 u1 þ x1 u0 þ bu30 þ eu0 ju0 j ¼ 0; u1 ð0Þ ¼ A; u01 ð0Þ ¼ 0: ð24Þ

The angular frequency x can be identified in view of no secular term in u1 , that
requires
Z T
cos xt½x1 u0 þ bu30 þ eu0 ju0 j dt ¼ 0; ð25Þ
0

where u0 ¼ A cos xt.

From the above equation, we can easily find that
3 8
x1 ¼  bA2  eA: ð26Þ
4 3p
If first-order approximate solution is enough, we set xi ¼ 0 (i P 2) in Eq. (21),
leading to the result
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
3 2 8
x¼ bA þ eA: ð27Þ
4 3p
Its period reads
2p
T ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi : ð28Þ
3 8
4
bA2 þ 3p eA

In case e ¼ 0, its period can be written as

4p
T ¼ pffiffiffi b1=2 A1 ¼ 7:25b1=2 A1 : ð29Þ
3
Its exact period can be readily obtained, which reads [18]
Tex ¼ 7:4164b1=2 A1 : ð30Þ
The maximal relative error is less than 2.2% for all b > 0 !

5. Conclusions

To our best knowledge this is the first result on application of homotopy

perturbation method to nonlinear oscillators with discontinuities. The dis-
continuous function will not affect much the effectiveness and convenience of
the method.

Acknowledgement

The work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China.

292 J.-H. He / Appl. Math. Comput. 151 (2004) 287–292

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