Richardson-extrapolated sequential splitting and its application

AbstractDuring numerical time integration, the accuracy of the numerical solution obtained with a given step size often proves unsatisfactory. In this case one usually reduces the step size and repeats the computation, while the results obtained for the coarser grid are not used. However, we can also combine the two solutions and obtain a better result. This idea is based on the Richardson extrapolation, a general technique for increasing the order of an approximation method. This technique also allows us to estimate the absolute error of the underlying method. In this paper we apply Richardson extrapolation to the sequential splitting, and investigate the performance of the resulting scheme on several test examples