An Engineer's Guide to Mathematica

4 Symbolic Operations

4.1 Introduction

One part of solving engineering problems is to apply one or more solution methods until a form that is amenable to numerical procedures and computer evaluation is obtained. We shall illustrate in this chapter how one can use the symbolic capabilities of Mathematica to meet these goals. One advantage of using symbolic solutions is that once their symbolic solution is known it can be converted to a function and used to perform parametric studies or used in other applications.

We shall illustrate two types of symbolic manipulations. The first type is concerned with the simplification and manipulation of the symbolic expressions to attain a form more suitable for one’s end usage. The second type is to perform a mathematical operation on a symbolic expression such as finding its derivative, integrating it, and the like.

Several simplification and manipulation commands that are typically used on symbolic expressions are listed in Table 4.1. Also included in this table are illustrations of the usage of these functions.

Table 4.1 Manipulation of symbolic expressions

The symbolic mathematical operations that will be illustrated are:

• Solving ...