MDB3053 NUMERICAL METHODS

TUTORIAL 2

1. You are designing a spherical tank (shown below) to hold water for a small village. The volume
of liquid it can hold can be computed as follows:

3V   h3  3R  h 

where V = volume (m3), h = depth of water in tank (m), and R = the tank radius (m).
(a) If R = 3 m, what depth must the tank be filled to so that it holds 30 m3?
(b) Solve the problem using Newton-Raphson method and determine the approximate relative
error after each iteration until your error is less than 0.1%.
Choose your initial guess carefully.
[(a) 3 solutions: -1.64081, 2.0269, 8.6139]

2. A mass balance for a pollutant in a well-mixed lake can be written as

dc
V  W  Qc  kV c
dt
Given V=1x106 m3, Q=1x105 m3/yr, W=1 x 106 g/yr, k = 0.25. Use the Secant method to
solve for the steady-state concentration. What is the best initial guess?
[4.624081]

3. A displacement function of a unit long beam is described by

f ( x)  2 x6  1.6 x 4  12 x  1
where x is the distance in meters. Determine the maximum displacement in the beam. Using
bisection method, with 4 decimal places, calculate the maximum displacement x location
such that the error is below 5%. Use initial guesses of 0 and 1 m.
[0.904541]

4. The velocity of a falling parachutist is given by

gm   ct  
v  1  exp    
c   m 

where g = 9.8 m/s2.

a. For a parachutist with a drag coefficient c=15 kg/s, compute the mass m so that the velocity
v=35 m/s at t= 9 s. Use false-position method to determine m to a level of error below 0.1%.
Use initial guess of 10 and 50.
[59.8452]

Attempt all tutorial questions before coming to tutorial session. The session is not for you to do your
exercise but to solve problems you encountered.
MDB3053 NUMERICAL METHODS
TUTORIAL 2

b. Use bisection to determine the drag coefficient needed so that an 80-kg parachutist has a
velocity of 36 m/s after 4 s of free fall. Use intial guesses of X L=0.1 and XU=50, and iterate
until the approximate relative error falls below 2%.
[3.4624]

5. Determine the real root of x3.5  80 (a) analytically and using MATLAB command, and (b)
with the bisection method to within ε_s = 2.5% and 4 significant figures. Use initial guesses of
2.0 and 5.0.
[3.45313. Converged soln: 3.49736]

6. Determine the real root of f ( x)  26  85x  91x 2  44 x3  8x 4  x5 (a) graphically using
MATLAB; (b) using false position to determine the root to error below 10%. Use initial guess
of 0.5 and 1.0.
[Below 10% error: 0.55733819. Converged 0.55702552]

Attempt all tutorial questions before coming to tutorial session. The session is not for you to do your
exercise but to solve problems you encountered.