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7: Techniques of Integration

  • Page ID
    186201
    • Gilbert Strang & Edwin “Jed” Herman
    • OpenStax

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    While basic integration techniques like substitution are powerful, they are not sufficient to evaluate the wide array of integrals encountered in mathematics, science, and engineering. This chapter delves into a diverse toolkit of advanced integration methods, each designed to tackle specific classes of challenging integrands. We will first master Integration by Parts, a technique essential for integrals involving products of functions. Next, we will explore Trigonometric Integrals and Trigonometric Substitution, which enable us to integrate expressions containing trigonometric functions or square roots of quadratic terms. The chapter then moves to Partial Fractions, a crucial method for integrating rational functions by decomposing them into simpler, more manageable terms. Finally, we will address situations where analytical integration is impossible or impractical by introducing Numerical Integration techniques, and extend our understanding of integration to cases with infinite limits or discontinuities through the study of Improper Integrals.

    • 7.1: Integration by Parts
      The advantage of using the integration-by-parts formula is that we can use it to exchange one integral for another, possibly easier, integral.
    • 7.2: Trigonometric Integrals
      Trigonometric substitution is an integration technique that allows us to convert algebraic expressions that we may not be able to integrate into expressions involving trigonometric functions, which we may be able to integrate using the techniques described in this section. In addition, these types of integrals appear frequently when we study polar, cylindrical, and spherical coordinate systems later. Let’s begin our study with products of sin x and cos x.
    • 7.3: Trigonometric Substitution
      The technique of trigonometric substitution comes in very handy when evaluating integrals of certain forms. This technique uses substitution to rewrite these integrals as trigonometric integrals.
    • 7.4: Partial Fractions
      In this section, we examine the method of partial fraction decomposition, which allows us to decompose rational functions into sums of simpler, more easily integrated rational functions.
    • 7.5: Strategy for Integration
      Now that you've diligently built a robust toolkit of integration techniques—from u-substitution and integration by parts to mastering trigonometric integrals, trigonometric substitution, and partial fraction decomposition—the true challenge of integration awaits. Up to this point, problems might have implicitly hinted at the method to use, but real-world scenarios don't come with labels. This section is dedicated to honing your strategic thinking, allowing you to confidently approach any integra
    • 7.6: Approximate Integration
      The antiderivatives of many functions either cannot be expressed or cannot be expressed easily in closed form (that is, in terms of known functions). Consequently, rather than evaluate definite integrals of these functions directly, we resort to various techniques of numerical integration to approximate their values. In this section we explore several of these techniques. In addition, we examine the process of estimating the error in using these techniques.
    • 7.8: Improper Integrals
      In this section, we define integrals over an infinite interval as well as integrals of functions containing a discontinuity on the interval. Integrals of these types are called improper integrals. We examine several techniques for evaluating improper integrals, all of which involve taking limits.


    This page titled 7: Techniques of Integration is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Gilbert Strang & Edwin “Jed” Herman (OpenStax) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.