COMPARING SOFTWARE FOR INTERACTIVE SOLUTION OF SYSTEMS OF NONLINEAR ALGEBRAIC EQUATIONS

Four general purpose interactive numerical solution packages: MAPLE, M ATLAB, MATHEMATICA and POLYMATH are compared with regard to their perf ormance in solving systems of nonlinear algebraic equations typical to chemical engineering applications. Criteria for ease of learning, eas e of use and user-friendliness of the packages are introduced. Benchma rk problems are used to demonstrate that the selection of good initial estimates is still a critical issue in solving highly nonlinear probl ems with any of these programs. It is concluded that of the programs t ested, the performance of MATHEMATICA and POLYMATH is the best for sys tems of NLEs, the interval of convergence of POLYMATH and MAPLE is the widest for a single NLE and POLYMATH possesses the most ''user-friend ly'' features. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.