A general method to remove the stiffness of PDEs

Abstract

A new method to remove the stiffness of partial differential equations is presented. Two terms are added to the right-hand-side of the PDE : the first is a damping term and is treated implicitly, the second is of the opposite sign and is treated explicitly. A criterion for absolute stability is found and the scheme is shown to be convergent. The method is applied with success to the mean curvature flow equation, the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, and to the Rayleigh-Taylor instability in a Hele-Shaw cell, including the effect of surface tension.