Scientia Iranica A (2012) 19 (6), 1473–1477

Sharif University of Technology

Scientia Iranica
Transactions A: Civil Engineering
www.sciencedirect.com

An efficient new iterative method for oscillator differential equation

Yasir Khan a,∗ , H. Vázquez-Leal b , N. Faraz c
a
Department of Mathematics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
b
School of Electronic Instrumentation, University of Veracruz, Xalapa, Mexico
c
Modern Textile Institute, Donghua University, 1882 Yan’an Xilu Road, Shanghai 200051, China

Received 5 March 2012; revised 24 June 2012; accepted 10 October 2012

KEYWORDS Abstract In this paper, a Van der Pol–Duffing oscillator is studied. Governing equations are solved by
Homotopy perturbation using a newly proposed method, namely; the ‘‘Homotopy Perturbation Transform Method’’ (HPTM). The
transform method; beauty of the paper is error analysis between the exact solutions, approximate solutions and numerical
Oscillator differential solutions, which shows that our approximate solutions converge very rapidly to the exact solutions. HPTM
equation. is not limited to the small parameter, such as in the classical perturbation method. The method gives an
analytical solution in the form of a convergent series with easily computable components, requiring no
linearization or small perturbation. Results indicate that this technique is very effective and simple for
solving nonlinear oscillatory systems. The solution procedure confirms that this method can be easily
extended to other kinds of nonlinear oscillator equations.
© 2012 Sharif University of Technology. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

1. Introduction optical intensing [10]. Other applications include certain flow-

Chaos and chaotic systems have received a flurry of
research effort in the past few decades. Such systems are
nonlinear by nature, can occur in various natural and man-
made systems, and [1] are characterized by great sensitivity
to initial conditions. The study of nonlinear vibrations and
oscillations is of crucial importance in all areas of engineering
sciences. These oscillator equations provide an important
mathematical model for dynamical systems having a single
unstable fixed point, along with a single stable limit cycle.
Examples of such phenomena arise in all of the natural
and engineering sciences [2,3], and arise in many physical
problems [4,5]. Up to now, various aspects of this problem have
been studied by different authors, such as vibration amplitude
control, synchronization dynamics, and additive resonances
[6–9]. It is also used to model optical disability in a dispersive
medium, in which the refractive index is dependent on the
∗
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 57187996214.
E-mail address: yasirmath@yahoo.com (Y. Khan).
Peer review under responsibility of Sharif University of Technology.
induced structural vibration problems [11]. Understanding of
dynamical behaviors is directly useful in nonlinear oscillations.
The literature on the topic is quite broad and, hence, cannot
be described here in detail. However, some most recent works
of eminent researchers, regarding the Van der Pol–Duffing
oscillator, have mentioned in the open literature [11–17].
All studies of this system are more or less based on
the perturbation theory, introducing the limitation of the
small/large parameter assumption in the calculations. In
this regard, a large quantity of open literature is based on
the homotopy analysis method [18,19] and He’s homotopy
perturbation method [20,21]. By combining the strength of
both methods, together with Laplace transformation, Khan and
Wu [22] developed a new method, namely; the homotopy
perturbation transform method (HPTM). The HPTM is much
easier to implement compared with the Laplace decomposition
method, in which huge complexities are involved. It is
worth mentioning that the proposed method is an important
agreement of Laplace transformation and the perturbation
method. Also, our aim in this article is to compare the results
with solutions to the existing ones [15–17].
2. Homotopy perturbation transform method

To describe the basic idea of Khan et al. HPTM [22], we

consider the nonlinear differential equation in the following
1026-3098 © 2012 Sharif University of Technology. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.scient.2012.10.018
1474 Y. Khan et al. / Scientia Iranica, Transactions A: Civil Engineering 19 (2012) 1473–1477

general form: 3. Application

Du(x, t ) + Ru(x, t ) + Nu(x, t ) = g (x, t ),
(1) To show the efficiency of the method, we consider two
u(x, 0) = h(x), ut (x, 0) = f (x) examples of well know Van der Pol equations.
where f (x), h(x) ∈ C (R), D is the second order linear differen-
tial operator, D = ∂2 /∂t 2 , R is the linear differential operator of Example 3.1. Consider the following Van der Pol’s oscillator
less order than D, N represents the general non-linear differen- problem [15–17]:
tial operator and g (x, t ) is the source term. Taking the Laplace
transform (denoted throughout this paper by L) on both sides d2 u du du
+ + u + u2 = 2 cos t − cos3 t ,
of Eq. (1): dt 2 dt dt (12)
L [Du(x, t )] + L [Ru(x, t )] + L [Nu(x, t )] = L [g (x, t )] . (2) u (0) = 0, u′ (0) = 1.
Using the differentiation property of Laplace transform: The exact solution of the above problem is given by:
s L [u(x, t )] − su(x, 0) − ut (x, 0) + L [Ru(x, t )] + L [Nu(x, t )]
2
u (t ) = sin t . (13)
= L [g (x, t )] (3)
By applying the aforementioned method subject to the initial
s2 L [u(x, t )] − sh(x) − f (x) + L [Ru(x, t )] + L [Nu(x, t )] condition, we have:
= L [g (x, t )] (4)  
1 1 du
h(x) f (x) 1 u(s) = + L 2 cos t − cos3 t − u − u2 . (14)
L [u(x, t )] = + 2 + 2 L [g (x, t )] s2 + s s2 + s dt
s s s
1 Apply the inverse Laplace transform:
L [Ru(x, t ) + Nu(x, t )] .
− (5)
s2
u (t ) = 1 − e−t
Operating with Laplace inverse on both sides of Eq. (5) gives:   
1
L−1 L 2 cos t − cos3 t − u − u2 ut . (15)
   
1 +
u(x, t ) = G(x, t ) − L−1 L[Ru(x, t ) + Nu(x, t )] , (6) s2 + s
s2
Now, we apply the Khan et al. homotopy perturbation trans-
where G(x, t ) represents the term arising from the source term
form method [22]:
and prescribed initial conditions. Now, we apply the homotopy
perturbation method: ∞
  

n −t −1 1
∞ p un = 1 − e +p L L 2 cos t − cos3 t
s2 + s

u(x, t ) = p un (x, t )
n
(7) n=0

n=0 ∞
 ∞

n n
and the nonlinear term can be decomposed as: − p un − p Hn (16)
n=0 n=0
∞
∞

Nu(x, t ) = pn Hn (u). (8) 
Nu = pn Hn (u0 , u1 , . . . , un ), (17)
n=0
n=0
For some He’s polynomials, Hn (see [23,24]) are given by:
   where Hn are He’s polynomials [23,24] that represent the non-
1 ∂n
∞
 linear terms. Comparing the coefficient of like powers of p, we
Hn (u0 , . . . , un ) = N i
p ui ,
n! ∂ pn i=0
have:
p=0

n = 0, 1, 2, 3 . . . . (9) p0 : u0 (t ) = 1 − e−t , (18)

 
Substituting Eqs. (8) and (7) in Eq. (6) we get: 1
p1 : u1 (t ) = L−1 L 2 cos t − cos3 t − u0 − H0 , (19)
 
∞ s2 + s
pn un (x, t )  
1
p2 : u2 (t ) = L−1 L 2 cos t − cos3 t − u1 − H1 ,
 
n=0
  
∞ ∞
 s2 + s
1  
= G(x, t ) − p L−1 pn un (x, t ) + pn Hn (u) . (10)
 
L R 1
s2 p3 : u3 (t ) = L−1 L 2 cos t − cos3 t − u2 − H2 ,
 
n=0 n=0
s2 + s
Comparing the coefficient of like powers of p, the following ap-
proximations are obtained: ..
.
p : u0 (x, t ) = G(x, t ),
0
  On solving Eq. (19), we get:
1
p1 : u1 (x, t ) = −L−1 L [Ru0 (x, t ) + H0 (u)] , 1
u1 (t ) = (200 − 4e−3t (5 − 30et + 57e2t ) − 120t
s 2
  120
1
p2 : u2 (x, t ) = −L−1 L [Ru1 (x, t ) + H1 (u)] , (11) − 75 cos t + 3 cos 3t + 75 sin t − sin 3t ), (20)
s2
  so that the solution u(t ) is given by:
1
p3 : u3 (x, t ) = −L−1 2
L [Ru2 (x, t ) + H2 (u)] , 1
s u(t ) = (320 − 4e−3t (5 − 30et + 87e2t ) − 120t
.. 120
. − 75 cos t + 3 cos 3t + 75 sin t − sin 3t ) + · · · . (21)
 Y. Khan et al. / Scientia Iranica, Transactions A: Civil Engineering 19 (2012) 1473–1477 1475

Table 1: Error analysis for Eq. (12) using HPTM, LDM, exact solutions and the numerical solutions for various values of t.

t HPTM solution LDM Numerical Exact solution Error = Error = Error =

solution [17] solution exact sol.–HPTM sol. exact sol.–LDM sol. exact sol.–numerical sol.

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0.1 0.0998382 0.0998291 0.0998 0.0998334 −0.0000048 0.00000043 0.0000334
0.2 0.198754 0.198598 0.1987 0.198669 −0.0000850 0.00007100 −0.0000310
0.3 0.295971 0.295144 0.2956 0.29552 −0.0004510 0.00037600 −0.000080
0.4 0.390884 0.388161 0.3896 0.389418 −0.0014660 0.00125700 −0.0001820
0.5 0.483027 0.476167 0.4796 0.479426 −0.0036010 0.00325900 −0.0001740
0.6 0.572029 0.557442 0.5648 0.564642 −0.0073870 0.0072000 −0.0001580
0.7 0.657552 0.629971 0.6444 0.644218 −0.0133340 0.0142470 −0.0001820
0.8 0.739232 0.691389 0.7174 0.717356 −0.0218760 0.02596700 −0.0000440
0.9 0.816622 0.738922 0.7832 0.783327 −0.0332950 0.04440500 0.0001270
1 0.889158 0.769345 0.841 0.841471 −0.0476870 0.07212600 0.00047100

Example 3.2. Consider the following nonlinear oscillator dif-

ferential equation [15–17]:
2
d2 u

du
− u + u2 + − 1 = 0,
dt 2 dt (22)
u (0) = 2, u′ (0) = 0

the exact solution of the above problem is given by:

u (t ) = 1 + cos t . (23)

In a similar way, we have:

  2 
2 1 1 du
u(s) = + + L u−u − 2
. (24)
s s3 s2 dt

The inverse of Laplace transform implies that:

   2 
t2

1 du Figure 1: Comparison between numerical and HPTM for Eq. (12) for large time
u (t ) = 2 + + L −1
L u−u − 2
. (25) 0 ≤ t ≤ 5.
2 s2 dt

In view of HPTM [22]: 5t 4 t6

u1 (t ) = −t 2 − − . (30)
   24 120
∞ 2 ∞
 t 1 
pn un = 2 + + p L−1 L pn un Therefore, a series solution is obtained, which reads:
n=0
2 s2 n=0
t2 5t 4 t6
∞ ∞
 u(t ) = 2 − − − − ···. (31)
  2 24 120
− pn H1,n − pn H2,n (26)
n=0 n=0

where H1n (u) and H2n (u) are He’s polynomials [23,24] that 4. Results and discussion
represent the nonlinear terms.
Comparing the coefficient of like powers of p, we have: In this study, the value of the presented homotopy
perturbation transform method has been investigated by
t2 considering Van der Pol–Duffing oscillator equations. The
p0 : u0 (t ) = 2 + , (27) convergence of HPTM results for u(t ) at 0 ≤ t ≤ 1 is shown
2
  in Tables 1 and 2. The results obtained by HPTM for Eqs. (12)
1 
p1 : u1 (t ) = L−1 , and (22) are compared with results of the numerical solution

L u0 − H1,0 − H2,0 (28)
s2 based on the fourth order Runge Kutta method and existing
results [15–17]. An excellent agreement between the present
 
1 
p2 : u2 (t ) = L−1 ,

L u1 − H1,1 − H2,1 and existing solutions [17] is achieved. Moreover, the validity of
s2
  HPTM results for large values of time is verified by comparison
1  with numerical results, which are shown in Figures 1–8. The
p3 : u3 (t ) = L−1 L u2 − H1,2 − H2,2 ,

s2 main characteristic of the proposed analytical approach is that
.. the solution is acceptable for small and large values of time.
.
5. Conclusion
On solving above equations, we get:

t2 Although, in the open literature, Van der Pol equations

u0 (t ) = 2 + , (29) have been solved extensively, in this study, we have applied
2
1476 Y. Khan et al. / Scientia Iranica, Transactions A: Civil Engineering 19 (2012) 1473–1477

Table 2: Error analysis for Eq. (22) using HPTM, LDM, exact solutions and the numerical solutions for various values of t.

t HPTM LDM Numerical Exact Error = Error = Error =

solution solution [17] solution solution exact sol.–HPTM sol. exact sol.–LDM sol. exact sol.–numerical sol.

0 2 2 2 2 0 0 0
0.1 1.99498 1.99498 1.995004 1.995 0.0000250069 0.0000250069 −0.00000400
0.2 1.97967 1.97967 1.980067 1.98007 0.000400445 0.000400445 −0.00000300
0.3 1.95331 1.95331 1.955336 1.95534 0.00203006 0.00203006 0.00000400
0.4 1.91463 1.91463 1.921061 1.92106 0.00642846 0.00642846 −0.00000100
0.5 1.86185 1.86185 1.877583 1.87758 0.0157336 0.0157336 −0.00000300
0.6 1.79261 1.79261 1.825336 1.82534 0.0327244 0.0327244 −0.00000820
0.7 1.704 1.704 1.764842 1.76484 0.0608434 0.0608434 −0.00000200
0.8 1.59248 1.59248 1.696707 1.69671 0.104225 0.104225 0.00000300
0.9 1.45388 1.45388 1.62161 1.62161 0.167726 0.167726 0.00000000
1 1.28333 1.28333 1.540302 1.5403 0.256969 0.256969 −0.00000200

Figure 2: Comparison between numerical and HPTM for Eq. (22) for large time
0 ≤ t ≤ 5. Figure 4: Comparison between numerical and HPTM for Eq. (22) for large time
0 ≤ t ≤ 10.

Figure 3: Comparison between numerical and HPTM for Eq. (12) for large time
0 ≤ t ≤ 10.
a recently developed method by Khan and Wu, in 2011 [22].
The examples analyzed illustrate the ability and reliability of
the HPTM presented in this paper. The method overcomes
the difficulties that appear in numerical methods because it
is efficient. The results of HPTM are compared with the exact
solution, LDM and numerical results [17]. The results of the
four methods have very close agreement with each other. We
Figure 5: Comparison between numerical and HPTM for Eq. (12) for large time
0 ≤ t ≤ 20.
confirm that one can use this method for any highly nonlinear
oscillator differential equations.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to express their cordial thanks to
the anonymous referees whose comments and suggestions
improved the presentation and quality of the paper.
 Y. Khan et al. / Scientia Iranica, Transactions A: Civil Engineering 19 (2012) 1473–1477
Figure 6: Comparison between numerical and HPTM for Eq. (22) for large time
0 ≤ t ≤ 20.
Figure 7: Comparison between numerical and HPTM for Eq. (12) for large time
0 ≤ t ≤ 50.
Figure 8: Comparison between numerical and HPTM for Eq. (22) for large time
0 ≤ t ≤ 50.
1477
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Yasir Khan is editor of three International Journals. His current research mainly
covers analytical and numerical solutions of nonlinear problems arising in
applied sciences and engineering phenomena.
Hector Vázquez-Leal is editor of one International Journal. His current
research mainly covers analytical-numerical solutions, and symbolic analysis
of nonlinear problems arising in microelectronics and applied sciences.
Naeem Faraz is a Ph.D. at Modern Textile Institute, Donghua University,
Shanghai, China. His current research interest mainly covers in nonlinear
science, textile engineering and fluid mechanics.