Direct integrators of Runge–Kutta type for special third-order ordinary differential equations

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the investigation of direct integrators of Runge–Kutta type for third-order ordinary differential equations (RKT). A new tri-colored tree theory and the corresponding B-series theory are built systematically, based on which the order conditions for RKT methods are derived. A two-stage explicit RKT method of order four and a three-stage explicit RKT method of order five are constructed. Implicit RKT methods of collocation type are considered. The results of numerical experiments show that our explicit RKT methods are more efficient than the traditional RK methods of the same algebraic order.