Partitioned adaptive Runge-Kutta methods and their stability

Summary This paper deals with the solution of partitioned systems of nonlinear stiff differential equations. Given a differential system, the user may specify some equations to be stiff and others to be nonstiff. For the numerical solution of such a system partitioned adaptive Runge-Kutta methods are studied. Nonstiff equations are integrated by an explicit Runge-Kutta method while an adaptive Runge-Kutta method is used for the stiff part of the system.The paper discusses numerical stability and contractivity as well as the implementation and usage of such compound methods. Test results for three partitioned stiff initial value problems for different tolerances are presented.