MIDAS III...a compiler version of MIDAS

Abstract

The original MIDAS program (MIDAS I, Wright Patterson AFB1) and the enlarged version of MIDAS (MIDAS II, North American Aviation2) proved to be effective tools for the digital solution of comple,, engineering problems. For large problems, however, running times for these programs were excessive and means were sought to improve the run-time efficiency. This is achieved in MIDAS III, which is no longer an interpretive type program as are MIDAS I and II, but rather a pre-compiler generating a FORTRAN program which is then compiled and assembled into an efficient machine language program. The execution times for this program are on the average between four and ten times shorter than in the earlier versions of MIDAS. This ap proach not only reduces computer execution time, it also gives the program more flexibility and expansion capa bility. A fourth order Runge-Kutta Merson integration method with automatic stepsize adjustment is used for the solution of the differential equations. As an application of MIDAS III, a two point boundary value problem is solved.