Brief Explanation of Integration Schemes
Brief Explanation of Integration Schemes
Brief Explanation of Integration Schemes
John T. Foster
Explicit Integration
Lets use a simple example to frame our investigation of explicit integration. Take a look
at Equation 1
x = f (x, t)
(1)
If we discretize t as we would in any numerical scheme t = t0 , t0 + t, t0 + 2t, . . . , t0 + nt
we can transform Equation 1 into the discrete time equivalent shown in Equation 2.
x n = f (xn , tn )
(2)
(xn+1 xn )
t
(3)
(4)
Using this formulation we can explicitly write down the solution for each consecutive step
in time given initial conditions. (i.e. x0 = c)
x1 = tf (t0 , c) + c
x2 = tf (t1 , x1 ) + x1
..
.
The particular method is known as Eulers method which is the simplest explicit integration
scheme. It allows for the calculation of xn+1 in terms of xn in a straightforward manner
at each time step, but is sensitive to stability issues (like all explicit methods) which will
be discussed next.
1
(5)
(6)
We also know that Equation 5 is only bounded (stable) when <() 0. Lets keep this in
mind as we investigate the stability of the numerical method. Discretize Equation 5 and
plug into Eulers formula.
xn+1 = txn + xn
= (1 + t)xn
= (1 + t)2 xn1
..
.
= (1 + t)n+1 x0
(7)
Equation 7 shows us that as n increases the only way xn+1 will not grow indefinitely is for
the following to hold true.
|1 + t| 1
(8)
Solving Equation 8 shows us that we must choose at time step that satisfies Equation 9
for the solution to be stable.
2
t
(9)
||
Therefore, even though the calculation of xn+1 at each step is simple in an explicit scheme
the time step must be small enough to ensure stability.
Implicit Integration
We will now use a Backward Euler method to demonstrate an implicit integration scheme.
We will only make a slight change to how we approximate the derivative.
x n =
(xn xn1 )
t
(10)
(11)
Since xn+1 appears on both sides of the Equation 11 it is said to be implicit in xn+1 .
This sometimes requires unique solution techniques to solve for xn+1 at each time step. So
each time step is computationally more expensive than an explicit method, but implicit
methods have advantages in stability.
xn+1 =
x0
(1 t)n+1
(12)
(13)