Abstract:

The students at the first year of the foundation stage of the faculty of engineering at the UAEU, complete a course in differential equations and engineering applications MATH 2210 as a prerequisite for the subsequent phases of their study. As a part of the objective of this course, the students practice MATLAB software package which is designed and developed by Mathworks. The main goal of using this software in this course is to solve differential equations. Mainly mathematical models of engineering systems like mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical and civil are modeled and solve to predict the response of the system under different conditions. In this paper, in class techniques are used to solve second order differential equations using MATLAB are presented. Basically, two essential procedures are utilized and presented to enable students using MATLAB/ODE code and MATLAB/SIMULINK blocks. The students acquired fruitful experience in conjunction with knowledge besides tested the difference, advantages and disadvantages of the both techniques. Moreover, the practice creates a collaborative atmosphere for the students through the term projects during the course.

Keywords:

MATLAB, SIMULINK, Mathematical, Engineering, DE.