THE EFFECTS OF STATE VARIABLE DISCONTINUITIES IN THE SOLUTION OF VARIATIONAL PROBLEMS,

Abstract

Some necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for an extremal solution are developed for two types of variational problems in which state variable discontinuities are permitted. The types of problems are characterized by the fact that the magnitudes of the discontinuities are defined by specified relationships. The necessary conditions result in discontinuities in the Lagrange multipliers at the points of discontinuity in the state variables. Steepest-ascent methods are described for solving problems which occur in engineering practice. Two analytical example problems, one with both the magnitude and occurrence of the discontinuity defined and one with only the magnitude defined, are presented and solved by the indirect methods of the calculus of variations. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 07, 1964
Accession Number
AD0602480

Entities

People

  • Rollyn G. Graham

Organizations

  • The Aerospace Corporation

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Calculus
  • Calculus Of Variations
  • Discontinuities

Readers

  • Approximation Theory.
  • Control Systems Engineering.
  • Operations Research