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Article Title: Taylor series solution for fractal Bratu-type equation arising in electro-
spinning process

Author(s): Chun-Hui He, Yue Shen, Fei-Yu Ji, Ji-Huan He

DOI: 10.1142/S0218348X20500115

Received: 19 July 2019

Accepted: 08 October 2019

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To be cited as: Chun-Hui He et al., Taylor series solution for fractal Bratu-
type equation arising in electrospinning process, Fractals, doi:
10.1142/S0218348X20500115

Link to final version: https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218348X20500115

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Accepted manuscript to appear in FRACTALS

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Taylor series solution for fractal Bratu-type equation arising in electrospinning process

Chun-Hui He**1 , Yue Shen**1, Fei-Yu Ji1,Ji-Huan He*1,2

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1. School of Science, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an, China
2. National Engineering Laboratory for Modern Silk, College of Textile and Clothing
Engineering, Soochow University ,199 Ren-Ai Road, Suzhou, China
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*Corresponding authors.

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E-mails: mathew_he@yahoo.com (C.H. He); hejihuan@suda.edu.cn(J.H. He)
**C.H. He and Y. Shen contribute equally to this work.

Abstract

Electrospinning is a complex process, and it can be modelled by a Bratu-type equation with

fractal derivatives by taking into account the solvent evaporation. Though there are many
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analytical methods available for such a problem, e.g., the variational iteration method and the
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homotopy perturbation method, a straightforward method with a simple solution process and
high accurate results is much needed. This paper applies the Taylor series technology to
fractal calculus, and an analytical approximate solution is obtained. A fractal variational
principle is also discussed. As the Taylor series is accessible to all non-mathematicians, this
paper sheds a bright light on practical applications of fractal calculus.
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Keywords: Taylor series, approximate solution, Bratu-type problem, fractal calculus,

semi-inverse method

1. Introduction

Electrospinning process[1-5] is an extremely complex process, which uses an electrostatic

force to overcome the surface tension of the Taylor cone, when the electrostatic force reaches
a threshold value, a jet is ejected, which will be further stretched in air. During the spinning
process, the solvent in the moving jet will be evaporated, it will be gradually solidified, and
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finally a nanofiber is obtained[6,7,8]. The moving jet is instable, and it can be modelled by a
Bratu-like equation, or the Wan model, which was first derived by Wan, Guo and Pan in
2004[9], and various modifications appeared to deal with different cases[10-13]. During the
spinning process, the solvent evaporation can be described by a Rachford-Rice-like
equation[14,15], and the macromolecule orientation in a nanofiber can be explained by
Bernoulli equation[16,17,18]. Due to their strong nonlinearities, we have difficulty to obtain
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analytical solutions for these equations to optimize the spinning process. In recent decades,
many methods appeared to solve such nonlinear problems, for examples, the homotopy
perturbation method[19-24], the variational iteration method[25,26], the variational
method[10,27-29]. These methods greatly promoted the development of science, especially
the development of nonlinear science. However, for engineers, a simple but effective method
is very needed to deal with a practical problem. Lin et al.[15] applied an ancient Chinese
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algorithm to solve the Rachford-Rice-like equation arising in the bubble electrospinning,

though the solution process is simple[30,31], but the ancient Chinese mathematics is foreign
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to Westerns. Dubey[13] suggested a fractional modification of Bratu-like equation for the
electrospinning process, Wei[32] suggested a fractional Lane-Emden equation, and the
solution process for fractional calculus becomes even more complex and difficult. In order to

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model the problem more accurately and the solution process is as simple as possible, this
paper adopts fractal calculus[33-39] to model the electrospinning, and uses Taylor series
method[40] to solve the problem.

2. Bratu’s equation and its fractal modification

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The instability of the moving jet in the electrospinning can be modelled by the following
Bratu’s equation[9-12]
y( x)  e y ( x )  0, 0  x  1,   0 , (1)
with the following boundary conditions
y( 0 ) ,0 y(1)  0 . (2)
It is well known that Bratu’s equation arises in many fields, and has attracted extensive

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attention of many researchers. However, the Wan model and its modifications did not consider
the solvent evaporation in the electrospinning process[8,14,41,42], which makes the
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continuum assumption of the moving jet invalid. By suitable control of the solvent
evaporation, porous fibers can be obtained[8,42]. The evaporation process can be modelled by
a fractal derivative model as those by Wang et al.[43] and Liu et al.[44].
Considering the solvent evaporation, a fractal modification has to be adopted:
d dy

(  )  e y ( x )  0, 0  x  1,  0, (3)
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dx dx
dy
where is the fractal derivative[33-39]:
dx
dy y( x)  y( x0 )

( x0 )  (1   ) lim . (4)
dx x  x0 x ( x  x )
x  0 0

Using the two-scale transform[38,39]

s  x . (5)
We can convert Eq.(3) approximately into the following one
d2y
  e y ( x )  0 , y(0)  0 , y(1)  0 .
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(6)
ds 2
In order to show the solution process, we differentiate Eq.(6) with respect to s to obtain high
order derivatives of y:
y    e y y,  (7)
y (4)    y  ( y)2  e y , (8)
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y (5)    y  3 yy  ( y)3  e y . (9)

We assume that
y (0)   , (10)
where  is an unknown constant to be further determined.
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Setting s=0 in Eqs.(6) and Eq.(7)-(9), and using the initial conditions y(0)  0 and y(0)   ,
we have
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y (0)   , (11)
y (0)   , (12)

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y(4) (0)   2   2 , (13)
y( 5 () 0 ) 42  +
 3. (14)
The Taylor series solution can be expressed as
1 1 1 1
y ( s)  y (0)  y(0) s 
y (0) s 2  y (0) s 3  y (4) (0) s 4  y (5) (0) s 5
2! 3! 4! 5!
(15)
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1 1 1 1
  s   s 2   s 3  ( 2   2 ) s 4  (4 2 + 3 ) s 5 .

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2 6 24 120
Using the boundary condition of y(1)  0 , we obtain
 1 1 1 1 
y (s) x 1   s   s 2   s 3  ( 2   2 ) s 4  (4 2 + 3 ) s 5 
 2 6 24 120  x 1 (16)
1 1 1 1
=      ( 2   2 )  (4 2 + 3 )=0.
2 6 24 120
From Eq.(16),  can be identified as AN
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1 1
=
6

1 1
 H (  ) 3 
2
3
12 2  35  360  2 H ( ) 
3 
5
3
, (17)
where
1
H ( )  12 (256 6  2135 5  26340 4  193600 3  499200 2  3096000  6912000) 1  2
180 2  3880  21600 .
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(18)
We, therefore, obtain the following approximate solution
1 1 1 1
y( x)  x   2x   3x  ( 2   2 )x 4  3 x )5 ,
 (42  + (19)
2 6 24 120
where  is determined by (17).
The solution process can continue if a higher order approximate solution is needed without
any difficulty. To exhibit the solution accuracy, a comparison between the approximate
solution and the exact one is illustrated for  =1 in Fig.1 for the cases   0.1, 0.5, and 1,
respectively . In case   1 , from Eq.(19), we predict that
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dy (0)
. (20)
dx
This implies the radius of the moving jet changes suddenly due to the solvent evaporation, see
Fig.2, and porous fibers can be fabricated[8,42].
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0.12
exact

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appro
0.1

0.08 =1
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0.06

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y

0.04 =0.5

0.02

0 =0.1

-0.02
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0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

x
Fig.1 Comparison of the approximate solutions with the exact ones when  =1 . The
continuous line is the exact solution, while the discontinuous line represents the approximate
result.
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0.06
Exact solution for  =1
Approximate solution

0.05  =0.8  =0.9

 =1
0.04
 =0.5

0.03
y

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 =0.3

0.02

0.01
 =0.1
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0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
x

Fig.2 The solution property (   1 )

3. Discussion and Conclusion

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This paper suggests a simple analytical method to a fractal derivative model arising in
electrospinning. The value of  depends upon the solvent evaporation process, a fast or
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sudden solvent evaporation will result in a small  , as a result, large porous fibers can be
fabricated. When the solvent evaporation is low, the value of  tends to 1, and smooth fibers
are predicted.

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According the semi-inverse method for fractal calculus[45], a variational formulation for
Eq.(3) can be established, which is
1  1 dy 
J ( y)    (  )2  e y ( x ) dx . (21)

0 2 dx

Wang et al. also applied the semi-inverse method[27-29,45] to obtain a variational principle
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for wave traveling in a porous medium[46], and Wang & He extended Wang et al.’s

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variational principle[46] to a spatial- temporal fractal variational principle[47].
In this paper, we suggest an extremely simple and elementary but rigorous Taylor series
method to solve fractal Bratu equation arising in electrospinning, the simple solution process
and accurate results make the method much attractive for practical applications. The idea can
be extended also to fractional calculus[48,49].

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