ENGR 221 / MATH 221

Differential Equations for Engineers

Fall 2010

Instructor: Frank Comeau

Web Page: www.stfx.ca/people/fcomeau

e-mail: fcomeau@stfx.ca

Telephone: 867-4538

Office Hours: posted on course web page and office door

Timetable: lectures P1, P2, P3 Tutorials N1

Textbook: Differential Equations with Boundary-Value Problems by D. Zill & M. Cullen

Course Description:

Covers first order linear and non-linear ordinary differential equations; ordinary differential equations of higher order with constant coefficients; applications to engineering problems; power series solutions; Laplace transforms; periodic functions; applications of Laplace transforms to linear systems; Fourier series.

Evaluation:

Assignments……………...……….……………….7.5 %

Tutorials…………………………………………...7.5 %

Weekly Quizzes……………………………………10 %

Midterm Quiz Monday 18 October ……….............25 %

Final Exam…………………………………………50 %

Course Regulations:

• Students must obtain at least 37.5 points in total out of a maximum of 75 points for the midterm quiz and the final exam. Otherwise, the final grade will be calculated from the midterm quiz and exam marks only.
• There will be ten weekly quizzes. The best 8 out of 10 will be marked. There will be no make-up quiz for any missed weekly quiz. A student can be excused from writing a weekly quiz with permission from the Dean’s office or a doctor’s note.
• Regulations from the academic calendar will be applied: see sections 3.7, 3.8, and 3.9 in particular.

Topics:

1. INTRODUCTION TO DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS.

2. FIRST-ORDER DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS.

3. MODELING WITH FIRST-ORDER DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS.

4. HIGHER-ORDER DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS.

5. MODELING WITH HIGHER-ORDER DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS.

7. LAPLACE TRANSFORM.

8. ORTHOGONAL FUNCTIONS AND FOURIER SERIES