On the Application of Runge-Kutta Methods to Transport Calculations

Abstract

Under a definition suitable to the transport equation, it is shown that the (two-stage explicit) Runge-Kutta (RK) methods having order of at least 2, and requiring essentially only one source evaluation per cell, consist of a one-parameter family, plus two additional methods. Two of these, the midpoint corrector and improved Euler methods, are selected for detailed computational comparison with the classical diamond-difference and step characteristic methods. Extensive monodirectional calculations reveal that the RK methods display absolute instability for cell path lengths exceeding 2 mfp, but that they are nearly competitive with the classical methods for small cell widths. It is shown how the two subject RK methods can be augmented by closure approximations, so as to permit their use in source iteration for multiple-direction calculations. The results of such calculations show that for small cell widths, the RK methods again are nearly competitive in accuracy, although the absolute stability requirement can impose a stringent upper bound on the acceptable cell widths; the RK methods interact well with source iteration, even though they do not conserve particles; and the particular closure approximations selected retain the second-order accuracy of the basic underlying methods.