Typical problems for stiff differential equations

ABSTRACT

The solution of stiff differential equations has become a very active area in recent years. To have some idea as to the wishes of practitioners would be of obvious value to researchers developing new tools, to software designers producing new codes, and to those evaluating the codes available at present. Because there is surprisingly little quantitative information published about the characteristics of the problems being solved, we have conducted a survey at the Sandia Laboratory in Albuquerque. This is a non-profit research and development firm contracted to the AEC (now ERDA) which does a variety of scientific computing. The size of the computing effort is suggested by the number of employees with Ph.D.'s, about 500, and the array of computers, three CDC 6600's, a UNIVAC 1108, a PDP-10, an IBM 7090, and some smaller machines. While our interviews can be no more than indicative, we hope others will also find this brief summary useful.