A qualitative analysis of the quasi-linear one-degree-of-freedom system

In this paper a qualitative analysis of the quasi-linear one-degree-of-freedom system with slow time variable parameters is considered. The system is described with a second order differential equation with slow time variable coefficients. The well known procedure for qualitative analysis of the systems with constant parameters is extended and adapted for analyzing the system with non-periodic time variable parameters and small non-linearity. The advantage of the developed method is that the behavior of the system may be discussed without solving the differential equation. Two examples of systems with variable mass are investigated. The results obtained agree with solutions obtained by quantitative analysis.