Time scales singular perturbation theory

The present chapter introduces the reader to singular perturbation theory as the framework for modeling and analyzing systems with multiple-time-scale dynamics, which we will make extensive use of throughout the text. 

Such nested applications of single-parameter singular perturbation theory (i.e., the extension of the analysis of two-time-scale systems presented in Chapter 2 to multiple-time-scale systems) have been used for stability analysis of linear (Ladde and Siljak 1983) and nonlinear (Desoer and Shahruz 1986) systems in the standard form. However, as emphasized above (Section 2.3), the ODE models of chemical processes are most often in the nonstandard singularly perturbed form, with the general multiple-perturbation representation... 

The basic ideas that are necessary for the first program stage are explained in Sections II, III, and IV. In Section II, we formulate the problem of how to analyze a system that has a gap in characteristic time scales. Our method is to use perturbation theory with respect to a parameter that is the ratio between a long time scale and a short time scale, which is a version of singular perturbation theory. The reason will be explained in Section II. In Section III, the concept of NHIMs is introduced in the context of singular perturbation theory. We will give an intuitive description of NHIMs and explain how the description is implemented, leaving the precise formulation of the NHIM concept to the literature in mathematics. In Section IV, we will show how Lie perturbation theory can be used to transform the system into the Fenichel normal form locally near a NHIM with a saddle with index 1. Our explanation is brief, since a detailed exposition has already been published [2]. 

The exploitation of multiple time-scales for systematic order reduction requires the transformation of a model to the standard two-time-scale form of singular perturbation theory. In the standard two-time-scale form, equation (1) is separated into fast and slow species. The model of the reaction system is expressed as... 

Higher order terms can be obtained by writing the inner and outer solutions as expansions in powers of e and solving the sets of equations obtained by comparing coefficients. This enzymatic example is treated extensively in [73] and a connection with the theory of materials with memory is made in [82]. The essence of the singular perturbation analysis, as this method is called, is that there are two (or more in some extensions) time (or spatial) scales involved. If the initial point lies in the domain of attraction of steady states of the fast variables and these are unique and stable, the state of the system will rapidly pass to the stable manifold of the slow variables and, one might... 

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