Highly Accurate and Efficient Time Integration Methods with Unconditional Stability and Flexible Numerical Dissipation

This paper constructs highly accurate and efficient time integration methods for the solution of transient problems. The motion equations of transient problems can be described by the first-order ordinary differential equations, in which the right-hand side is decomposed into two parts, a linear part and a nonlinear part. In the proposed methods of different orders, the responses of the linear part at the previous step are transferred by the generalized Padé approximations, and the nonlinear part’s responses of the previous step are approximated by the Gauss–Legendre quadrature together with the explicit Runge–Kutta method, where the explicit Runge–Kutta method is used to calculate function values at quadrature points. For reducing computations and rounding errors, the 2^m algorithm and the method of storing an incremental matrix are employed in the calculation of the generalized Padé approximations. The proposed methods can achieve higher-order accuracy, unconditional stability, flexible dissipation, and zero-order overshoots. For linear transient problems, the accuracy of the proposed methods can reach 10⁻¹⁶ (computer precision), and they enjoy advantages both in accuracy and efficiency compared with some well-known explicit Runge–Kutta methods, linear multi-step methods, and composite methods in solving nonlinear problems.