Stiffness and Non-Stiff Differential Equation Solvers

The effects of stiffness are investigated for production codes for solving non-stiff ordinary differential equations. First, a practical view of stiffness as related to methods for non-stiff problems is described. Second, the interaction of local error estimators, automatic step size adjustment, and stiffness is studied and shown normally to prevent instability. Third, a practical test for stiffness in variable order Adams codes is developed. Numerical results for working codes are presented for each topic.