Simplest equation method for some time-fractional partial differential equations with conformable derivative

Abstract

The conformable fractional derivative was proposed by R. Khalil et al. in 2014, which is natural and obeys the Leibniz rule and chain rule. Based on the properties, a class of time-fractional partial differential equations can be reduced into ODEs using traveling wave transformation. Then the simplest equation method is applied to find exact solutions of some time-fractional partial differential equations. The exact solutions (solitary wave solutions, periodic function solutions, rational function solutions) of time-fractional generalized Burgers equation, time-fractional generalized KdV equation, time-fractional generalized Sharma–Tasso–Olver (FSTO) equation and time-fractional fifth-order KdV equation, (3+1)-dimensional time-fractional KdV–Zakharov–Kuznetsov (KdV–ZK) equation are constructed. This method presents a wide applicability to solve some nonlinear time-fractional differential equations with conformable derivative.