Two FORTRAN packages for assessing initial value methods

Abstract

We present a discussion and description of a collection of FORTRAN routines designed to aid in the assessment of initial value methods for ordinary differential equations. Although the overall design characteristics are similar to those of earlier testing packages [2,6] that were used for the comparison of methods [5,7], the details and objectives of the current collection are quite different. Our principal objective is the development of testing tools that can be used to assess the efficiency and reliability of a standard numerical method without requiring significant modifications to the method and without the tools themselves affecting the performance of the method.