Computation of blowing-up solutions for second-order differential equations using re-scaling techniques (Q1012516)

This paper is concerned with the computation of blowing up solutions of initial value problems for a special type of second-order autonomous differential equations. The equations have the form \[ y'' - b |y'|^{q-1} \; y' + |y|^{p-1} \; y = 0, \tag{1} \] where \(y = y(t)\), \( t >0\) is the unknown function, \( p>0, q>0\) and \( b \neq 0 \) are given constant parameters together with some initial conditions at \(t=0\), \( y(0)= y_0, y'(0)=y'_0\). In previous studies it has been proved that for some values of the available parameters of (1) there are blowing up solutions at some \( T_b < + \infty \). In the paper under consideration the authors propose a so called sliced technique which subdivides the integration interval \( 0=T_0< T_1< T_2< \ldots \) in subintervals so that in each subinterval \((T_{n-1}, T_n)\) one has to solve a shooting problem with a stopping criterion which ensures that, under suitable conditions, \( T_n \to T_b\) when \( n \to \infty\). Some particular test equations are presented and the numerical results obtained with the classical fourth order Runge-Kutta method are given. In all examples the proposed technique exhibits an accurate determination of the blowing time and also the numerical solution even with a moderate number of slices.