On a fourth-order unconditionally stable scheme for damped second-order systems

We consider the damped second-order system $\text{M}\text{u}\text{?}\text{+ C/.u + Ku = F(t)}$ (M, C, K symmetric, positive definite n × n matrices) by conversion to an equivalent first-order system

$\text{I}\text{O}\text{O}\text{M}\text{d}\text{d}\text{t}\text{O}\text{?K}\text{I}\text{?C}\text{u}\text{u}\text{?}\text{+}\text{o}\text{F(t)}$

We demonstrate that an algorithm proposed by Fairweather for the implementation of the (2, 2) Padé approximation of the exponential matrix for approximating the solution of homogeneous first-order systems extends advantageously to this case, yielding an unconditionally stable fourth-order scheme with the feature that the approximating equations decouple. As a result we are required only to solve one symmetric complex n × n system of linear algebraic equations at each time step, with a fixed matrix which may be decomposed into triangular factors at the outset. We also consider iterative schemes involving only real, positive definite, symmetric n × n matrices. Numerical results are included.