Variable Step Exponentially Fitted Explicit Sixth-Order Hybrid Method with Four Stages for Spring-Mass and Other Oscillatory Problems

Abstract

For the numerical integration of differential equations with oscillatory solutions an exponentially fitted explicit sixth-order hybrid method with four stages is presented. This method is implemented using variable step-size while its derivation is accomplished by imposing each stage of the formula to integrate exactly { 1 , t , t 2 , … , t k , exp ( ± μ t ) } where the frequency μ is imaginary. The local error that is employed in the step-size selection procedure is approximated using an exponentially fitted explicit fourth-order hybrid method. Numerical comparisons of the new and existing hybrid methods for the spring-mass and other oscillatory problems are tabulated and discussed. The results show that the variable step exponentially fitted explicit sixth-order hybrid method outperforms the existing hybrid methods with variable coefficients for solving several problems with oscillatory solutions.