Chapter 03.

03
Bisection Method of Solving a Nonlinear Equation-
More Examples
Civil Engineering
Example 1
You are making a bookshelf to carry books that range from 8½" to 11" in height and would
take up 29" of space along the length. The material is wood having a Young’s Modulus of
3.667 Msi , thickness of 3/8" and width of 12". You want to find the maximum vertical
deflection of the bookshelf. The vertical deflection of the shelf is given by
v( x)  0.42493  10 4 x 3  0.13533  10 8 x 5  0.66722  10 6 x 4  0.018507 x
where x is the position along the length of the beam. Hence to find the maximum deflection
dv
we need to find where f ( x)   0 and conduct the second derivative test.
dx

Books

Bookshelf

Figure 1 A loaded bookshelf.

The equation that gives the position x where the deflection is maximum is given by

 0.67665  10 8 x 4  0.26689  10 5 x 3  0.12748  10 3 x 2  0.018507  0

Use the bisection method of finding roots of equations to find the position x where the
deflection is maximum. Conduct three iterations to estimate the root of the above equation.
Find the absolute relative approximate error at the end of each iteration and the number of
significant digits at least correct at the end of each iteration.

03.03.1
03.03.2 Chapter 03.03

Solution
From the physics of the problem, the maximum deflection would be between x  0 and
x  L , where

L  length of the bookshelf,

that is
0 xL
0  x  29
Let us assume
x  0, xu  29
Check if the function changes sign between x and xu .
f  x   f 0
 0.67665  10 8 (0) 4  0.26689  10 5 (0) 3  0.12748  10 3 (0) 2  0.018507
 0.018507
f xu   f 29
 0.67665  10 8 (29) 4  0.26689  10 5 (29) 3  0.12748  10 3 (29) 2  0.018507
 0.018826
Hence
f  x  f  xu   f 0  f 29    0.018507 0.018826   0
So there is at least one root between x and xu that is between 0 and 29.

Iteration 1
The estimate of the root is
x  xu
xm  
2
0  29

2
 14.5
f  x m   f 14.5
 0.67665  10 8 (14.5) 4  0.26689  10 5 (14.5) 3  0.12748  10 3 (14.5) 2  0.018507
 1.4007  10  4
 
f  x m  f  xu   f 14.5 f 29   1.4007  10 4 0.018826  0
Hence the root is bracketed between x m and xu , that is, between 14.5 and 29. So, the lower
and upper limits of the new bracket are
x  14.5, xu  29
At this point, the absolute relative approximate error a cannot be calculated as we do not
have a previous approximation.
Bisection Method – More Examples: Civil Engineering 03.03.3

Iteration 2
The estimate of the root is
x  xu
xm  
2
14.5  29

2
 21.75
f  x m   f 21.75
 0.67665  10 8 (21.75) 4  0.26689  10 5 (21.75) 3
 0.12748  10 3 (21.75) 2  0.018507
 0.012824
f  x  f  x m   f 14.5 f 21.75   1.4007  10 4 0.012824  0
Hence, the root is bracketed between x and x m , that is, between 14.5 and 21.75. So the
lower and upper limits of the new bracket are
x  14.5, xu  21.75
The absolute relative approximate error, a at the end of Iteration 2 is
x mnew  x mold
a   100
x mnew
21.75  14.5
  100
21.75
 33.333%
None of the significant digits are at least correct in the estimated root
x m  21.75
as the absolute relative approximate error is greater than 5% .

Iteration 3
The estimate of the root is
x  xu
xm  
2
14.5  21.75

2
 18.125
f  x m   f 18.125
 0.67665  10 8 (18.125) 4  0.26689  10 5 (18.125) 3
 0.12748  10 3 (18.125) 2  0.018507
 6.7502  10 3
  
f  x  f  x m   f 14.5 f 18.125   1.4007  10 4 6.7502  10 3  0
Hence, the root is bracketed between x and x m , that is, between 14.5 and 18.125. So the
lower and upper limits of the new bracket are
03.03.4 Chapter 03.03

x  14.5, xu  18.125
The absolute relative approximate error a at the end of Iteration 3 is
x mnew  x mold
a   100
x mnew
18.125  21.75
  100
18.125
 20%
Still none of the significant digits are at least correct in the estimated root of the equation as
the absolute relative approximate error is greater than 5% .

Seven more iterations were conducted and these iterations are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Root of f  x   0 as a function of the number of iterations for bisection method.

Iteration x xu xm a % f xm 
1 0 29 14.5 ---------- −1.3992  10 4
2 14.5 29 21.75 33.333 0.012824
3 14.5 21.75 18.125 20 6.7502  10 3
4 14.5 18.125 16.313 11.111 3.3509  10 3
5 14.5 16.313 15.406 5.8824 1.6099  10 3
6 14.5 15.406 14.953 3.0303 7.3521  10 4
7 14.5 14.953 14.727 1.5385 2.9753 10 4
8 14.5 14.727 14.613 0.77519 7.8708  10 5
9 14.5 14.613 14.557 0.38911 −3.0688  10 5
10 14.557 14.613 14.585 0.19417 2.4009 10 5
th
At the end of the 10 iteration,
a  0.19417%
Hence the number of significant digits at least correct is given by the largest value of m for
which
a  0.5  10 2 m
0.19417  0.5  10 2 m
0.38835  10 2 m
log0.38835   2  m
m  2  log0.38835  2.4108
So
m2
The number of significant digits at least correct in the estimated root 14.585 is 2.
Bisection Method – More Examples: Civil Engineering 03.03.5

NONLINEAR EQUATIONS
Topic Bisection Method-More Examples
Summary Examples of Bisection Method
Major Civil Engineering
Authors Autar Kaw
Date August 7, 2009
Web Site http://numericalmethods.eng.usf.edu