Solving a System of One-Dimensional Hyperbolic Delay Differential Equations Using the Method of Lines and Runge-Kutta Methods

Abstract

In this paper, we consider a system of one-dimensional hyperbolic delay differential equations (HDDEs) and their corresponding initial conditions. HDDEs are a class of differential equations that involve a delay term, which represents the effect of past states on the present state. The delay term poses a challenge for the application of standard numerical methods, which usually require the evaluation of the differential equation at the current step. To overcome this challenge, various numerical methods and analytical techniques have been developed specifically for solving a system of first-order HDDEs. In this study, we investigate these challenges and present some analytical results, such as the maximum principle and stability conditions. Moreover, we examine the propagation of discontinuities in the solution, which provides a comprehensive framework for understanding its behavior. To solve this problem, we employ the method of lines, which is a technique that converts a partial differential equation into a system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). We then use the Runge–Kutta method, which is a numerical scheme that solves ODEs with high accuracy and stability. We prove the stability and convergence of our method, and we show that the error of our solution is of the order O(Δt+h¯4), where Δt is the time step and h¯ is the average spatial step. We also conduct numerical experiments to validate and evaluate the performance of our method.