Solution of a Set of Nonlinear Equations by Newton-

Raphson Method

In this section we shall discuss the solution of a set of nonlinear equations
through Newton-Raphson method. Let us consider that we have a set
of n nonlinear equations of a total number of n variables x
1
, x
2
, ... , x
n
. Let
these equations be given by

f
1
(x
1
, , x
n
) =
1
f
2
(x
1
, , x
n
) =
2

.
.
.
f
n
(x
1
, , x
n
) =
n


where f
1
, ... , f
n
are functions of the variables x
1
, x
2
, ... , x
n
. We can then define
another set of functions g
1
, ... , g
n
as given below

g
1
(x
1
, , x
n
) = f
1
(x
1
, , x
n
)
1
= 0

g
1
(x
1
, , x
n
) = f
1
(x
1
, , x
n
)
1
= 0

.
.
.
g
1
(x
1
, , x
n
) = f
1
(x
1
, , x
n
)
1
= 0






Let us assume that the initial estimates of the n variables are x
1
(0)
, x
2
(0)
, ... , x
n
(0)
. Let
us add corrections x
1
(0)
, x
2
(0)
, ... , x
n
(0)
to these variables such that we get the
correct solution of these variables defined by

x
1
*

= x
1
(0)
+ x
1
(0)
x
2
*

= x
2
(0)
+ x
2
(0)

.
.
.
x
n
*

= x
n
(0)
+ x
n
(0)

The functions in (4.23) then can be written in terms of the variables given in (4.24) as

g
k
(x
1
*
, , x
n
*
) = g
k
(x
1
(0)
+ x
1
(0)
, , x
n
(0)
+ x
n
(0)
) = 0 where k = 1, , n (4.25)




We can then expand the above equation in Taylor 's series around the nominal values
of x
1
(0)
, x
2
(0)
, ... , x
n
(0)
. Neglecting the second and higher order terms of the series,
the expansion of g
k
, k= 1, ... , n is given as

(x
1
*
, , x
n
*
) = g
k
(x
1
(0)
, , x
n
(0)
) + x
1
(0)

1

(0)
+ x
2
(0)

2

(0)
+ + x
n
(0)

(0)
(4.26)


where

(0)
is the partial derivative of g
k
evaluated at x
2
(1)
, ... , x
n
(1)
.

Equation (4.26) can be written in vector-matrix form as

1
(0)

x
1
(0)

x
1
(0)

x
1
(0)

=
0 g
1
(x
1
(0)
, , x
n
(0)
)
0 g
1
(x
1
(0)
, , x
n
(0)
)
0 g
1
(x
1
(0)
, , x
n
(0)
)
The square matrix of partial derivatives is called the Jacobian
matrix J with J
(1)
indicating that the matrix is evaluated for the initial values
of x
2
(0)
, ... , x
n
(0)
. We can then write the solution of (4.27) as
(4.27)


x
1
(0)

x
2
(0)

x
n
(0)

=

(0)
-1

g
1
(0)

g
2
(0)

g
n
(0)


g
k
(x
1
*
, , x
n
*
) g
k
(x
1
(0)
, , x
n
(0)
) = 0 where k = 1, , n
Since the Taylor 's series is truncated by neglecting the 2
nd
and higher order
terms, we cannot expect to find the correct solution at the end of first iteration.
We shall then have
(4.28)
x
1
(1)

= x
1
(0)
+ x
1
(0)
x
2
(1)

= x
2
(0)
+ x
2
(0)

.
.
.
x
n
(1)

= x
n
(0)
+ x
n
(0)
(4.29)
These are then used to find J
(1)
and g
k

(1)
, k = 1, ... , n . We can then find x
2
(1)
,
... , x
n
(1)
from an equation like (4.28) and subsequently calculate x
2
(1)
, ... , x
n
(1)
.
The process continues till g
k
, k = 1, ... , n becomes less than a small quantity.
g
k
(0)
= 0 g
1
(x
1
(0)
, , x
n
(0)
)