A Support State Marker Method for Detecting Discontinuities in Simulation of Dynamic Systems

The design of discontinuity facilities is a critical factor in the success of many simulation efforts. This paper discusses the problems caused by detecting a discontinuity in terms of a change of sign in the value of a discontinuity function and describes an alternative which uses a change of the state marker value to suit the simulation of discontinuous systems in engineering applications. Subroutines which implement the method have been successfully built into integration package for stiff system with discontinuities.