In the above paper,' Kormanik and Li have given a systematic procedure to obt.ain an analytic expresion for the stability boundary of a seeond-order nonlinear system, whose stable equilibrium point is located at the origin of t,he phase plane. In the present correspon- dence, we would like to make some comments concerning the useful- ness of the methods applied in that, paper. Lie series method has been used by Kormanik and Li1 to obtain a set of points which lie very close t.o exact stability boundary, by simultaneous solution of the system stat,e equations and the modified form of Zubov's partial differential equat.ion ((l) and (5)).* We have worked out. the example reported' on an IBM '7044 com- puter, using Lie series method and obtained the results as reported by the authors. We have also integrat.ed (1) and (5)' simultaneously, using a standard numerical integration technique-Fourth order Runge-Kutt.a method, and obtained the identical results (see Fig. (l)), with much less computational effort and reduced computing time. The total computer t.ime taken including execut.ion and com- pilation, using Runge-Kut,ta method was 20 s. We would accord- ingly like to know t.he claims the authors make about advantages of Lie series method over standard numerical integration techniques. Kormanik and Li1 have considered a simple example of Vander- pol-Oscillator where linlit cycle phenomenon is exhibited. It appears however that the techniques described' will be insufficient to obt.ain regions of attraction for systems having a stable equilibrium point but with phase-plane trajectories as shorn in Fig. 2. The basic problem in Fig. 2 is the computat.ion of t.he domain of at.traction of the equilibrium point.. This kind of problem is encountered while dealing with transient stabilit,y studies in power system, e.g., com- putation of domain of stability for a single machine connected to an infinit,e bus taking t.ransient saliency and damping into account. This same nature of phase plane t.rajectories is also exhibited in some phase-locked loop synchronization studies (I). One important problem encountered in 6he integration process is in the choice of t.he init.ia1 guess for t.he state variables. The authors suggest t.hat, in general, a set of initial values may be chosen as lying on sufficiently closed quadrdic surface around the st.able equilibrium point x = 0, which satisfies (2)' in the for the given +(x). If me t.ake a positive definite +(x), (2)' is always satisfied, as long as we stay within the st.ability domain, i.e., V(x) < 1. So we are un- able to appreciate what the authors wanted to convey by the term, small neighborhood. The necessity for a small neighborhood does not appear to be very stringent as long as above mentioned conditions are met. Furthermore, for the problem relatcd to Fig. 2, one would have
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