Find Laplace Transform of a windowed ramp function using unit step function and t-shifting. (5.3-44)

1.1k Views Asked by At

Please check my work. Did I calculate the following Laplace Transform correctly? Our function is $f(t)=t$ where $(1<t<4)$ and $f(t)=0$ everywhere else.

My solution:

First express function with the unit step function. While doing this notice that said function is windowed between $t=1$ and $t=4$. Therefore we have...

$$f(t)=t\cdot u(t-1)-t\cdot u(t-4)$$

For simplicity we shall break up our function into two parts (one for each term)...

$$f_1(t)=t\cdot u(t-1)$$

$$f_2(t)=t\cdot u(t-4)$$

where...

$$f(t)=f_1(t)-f_2(t)$$

The following corollary from the second shifting theorem (t-shift) shall be applied separately to each term...

$$\mathcal{L}\{g(t)u(t-a)\}=e^{-as}\mathcal{L}\{g(t+a)\}$$

where...

$$f(t)=g(t+a)$$

with $g_1(t)=t$ and $a=1$

$$g_1(t+1)=t+1$$

$$\mathcal{L_1}\{g_1(t+1)\}=e^{-s}\cdot \mathcal{L}\{t+1\}$$

$$F_1(s)=e^{-s}\cdot [\frac{1}{s}+\frac{1}{s^2}]$$

with $g_2(t)=t$ and $a=4$

$$g_2(t+4)=t+4$$

$$\mathcal{L_2}\{g_2(t+4)\}=e^{-4s}\cdot \mathcal{L}\{t+4\}$$

$$F_2(s)=e^{-4s}\cdot [\frac{4}{s}+\frac{1}{s^2}]$$

hence...

$$F(s)=F_1(s)-F_2(s)$$

$$F(s)=e^{-s}\cdot [\frac{1}{s}+\frac{1}{s^2}]-e^{-4s}\cdot [\frac{4}{s}+\frac{1}{s^2}]$$

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On BEST ANSWER

Your solution is correct. However, I'd like to show you another, and in my opinion simpler method to solve such problems. Note that the derivative of the given function is

$$f'(t)=\delta(t-1)+u(t-1)-u(t-4)-4\delta(t-4)\tag{1}$$

The Laplace transform of (1) is very simple:

$$\mathcal{L}\{f'(t)\}=e^{-s}+\frac{e^{-s}}{s}-\frac{e^{-4s}}{s}-4e^{-4s}= e^{-s}\left(1+\frac{1}{s}\right)-e^{-4s}\left(4+\frac{1}{s}\right)\tag{2}$$

Using

$$\mathcal{L}\{f'(t)\}=sF(s)-f(0)$$

you get with $f(0)=0$ the same expression for $F(s)$ that you derived.