The simulated cooling of the hot-rolled structural steel sections (Q1921206)

The authors aim to find the most efficient numerical method for the solution of a two-dimensional semidiscretized heat conduction equation with nonlinear boundary condition. They compare the explicit Euler method, van Houwen's embedded Runge-Kutta schemes of low order (but with increased stability interval on the negative real axis), higher-order Runge-Kutta (RK), and alternating direction implicit (ADI, presumably Peaceman-Rachford) methods. They also present a new embedded RK 2(1) method with 15 stages and stability interval \([-183.9,0]\). In case of air cooling (characterized by a short transient solution phase and a long stiff phase) the new method proved valuable in combination with Watt's stepsize algorithm, but ADI was found to be even better. In case of water spray cooling (featured by a dominating transient solution phase) Euler and ADI were better than the Runge-Kutta methods. So the overall conclusion should be in favour of ADI, but the authors refer to an (assumed) applicability of ADI to simple rectilinear geometries only (whereas \textit{A. V. Gulin} and \textit{I. V. Frjazinov} [Differ. Uravn. 12, 1906-1914 (1976; Zbl 0352.35051)] showed Peaceman-Rachford to be unconditionally stable and convergent in general domains, too).