Adaptive step size controllers based on Runge-Kutta and linear-neighbor methods for solving the non-stationary heat conduction equation

We systematically test families of explicit adaptive step size controllers for solving the diffusion or heat equation. After discretizing the space variables as in the conventional method of lines, we are left with a system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). Different methods for estimating the local error and techniques for changing the step size when solving a system of ODEs were suggested previously by researchers. In this paper, those local error estimators and techniques are used to generate different types of adaptive step size controllers. Those controllers are applied to a system of ODEs resulting from discretizing diffusion equations. The performances of the controllers were compared in the cases of three different experiments. The first and the second system are heat conduction in homogeneous and inhomogeneous media, while the third one contains a moving heat source that can correspond to a welding process.