The Copperbelt University

School of Mines and Mineral Sciences

Department of Chemical Engineering
MA 311: Numerical Methods
Practice questions: Nonlinear equations
Date: 24-02-2024

Question 1
The friction factor, f depends on the Reynolds number for turbulent flow in a smooth pipe
according to the following relationship:

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f
 0.40  3ln Re f  
(i) Define x  f and rearrange the above equation in the standard form: f  x   0 (ii) with an
initial guess of friction factor f 1  0.01 , find the friction factor for Re = 105 using the Newton-
Raphson method to an error tolerance of 5%. Report the friction factor obtained at the end of
each iteration.

f  xi 
HINT 1: Newton-Raphson method is xi 1  xi 
f   xi 
HINT-2: Do not report x at the end of each iteration, you need to report friction factor, f.

Question 2
Determine the real root of f (x) = 4x3 − 6x2 + 7x − 2.3:
(a) Graphically (b) Using bisection to locate the root. Employ initial guesses of xl = 0 and xu =
1 and iterate until the estimated error εa falls below a level of εs = 10%.

Question 3
Water is flowing in a trapezoidal channel at a rate of Q = 20 m3/s. The critical depth y for such a
channel must satisfy the equation

Q2
0  1 B
gAc3

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where g = 9.81 m/s2 , Ac = the cross-sectional area (m2), and B = the width of the channel at the
surface (m). For this case, the width and the cross-sectional area can be related to depth y by

y2
B  y  3 and Ac  3 y 
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Solve for the critical depth using (a) the graphical method, (b) binary chopping, and (c) false
position. For (b) and (c), use initial guesses of xl = 0.5 and xu = 3, and iterate until the approximate
error falls below 1% or the number of iterations exceeds 10. Discuss your results.

Question 4
According to Archimedes principle, the buoyancy force is equal to the weight of fluid displaced
by the submerged portion of an object. For the sphere depicted below, use (i) Bolzano’s method
and (ii) regula falsi method to determine the height h of the portion that is above water. Employ
the following values for your computation: r = 1.25 m, ρs = density of sphere = 250 kg/m3, and
ρw = density of water = 1000 kg/m3.
Note that the volume of the above-water portion of the sphere can be computed with
 h2
V  3r  h  . Use initial guesses of xl = 0 and xu = 2.5 and terminate your iteration when the
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relative approximate error falls below 1%.

Question 5

The lateral surface area, S, of a cone is given by S   r r 2  h 2 , where r is the radius of the base
and h is the height. Determine the radius of a cone that has a surface area of 1800 m2 and a height


of 25 m. Solve by using the fixed-point iteration method with r  S /  r 2  h2  as the
iteration function. Start with r = 17 m and calculate the first four iterations.

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Question 6
The “divide and average” method, an old-time method for approximating the square root
xa/ x
of any positive number a, can be formulated as x  . Prove that this is equivalent to
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the Newton-Raphson algorithm.