| description abstract | A structural decomposition method based on symbol operation for solving differential algebraic equations (DAEs) is developed. Constrained dynamical systems are represented in terms of DAEs. State-space methods are universal for solving DAEs in general forms, but for complex systems with multiple degrees-of-freedom, these methods will become difficult and time consuming because they involve detecting Jacobian singularities and reselecting the state variables. Therefore, we adopted a strategy of dividing and conquering. A large-scale system with multiple degrees-of-freedom can be divided into several subsystems based on the topology. Next, the problem of selecting all of the state variables from the whole system can be transformed into selecting one or several from each subsystem successively. At the same time, Jacobian singularities can also be easily detected in each subsystem. To decompose the original dynamical system completely, as the algebraic constraint equations are underdetermined, we proposed a principle of minimum variable reference degree to achieve the bipartite matching. Subsequently, the subsystems are determined by aggregating the strongly connected components in the algebraic constraint equations. After that determination, the free variables remain; therefore, a merging algorithm is proposed to allocate these variables into each subsystem optimally. Several examples are given to show that the proposed method is not only easy to implement but also efficient. | |
