This paper illustrates the performance of several representative implicit A-stable time integration methods with algorithmic dissipation for multibody system dynamics, formulated as a set of mixed implicit first-order differential and algebraic equations. The integrators include the linear multi-step methods with two to four steps, the single-step reformulations of the linear multi-step methods, and explicit first-stage, singly diagonally-implicit Runge–Kutta methods. All methods are implemented in the free, general-purpose multibody solver MBDyn. Their formulations and implementation are presented. According to the comparison from linear analysis and numerical experiments, some general conclusions on the selection of integration schemes and their implementation are obtained. Although all of these methods can predict reasonably accurate solutions, the specific advantages that each of them has in different situations are discussed.

A novel explicit three-sub-step time integration method is proposed. From linear analysis, it is designed to have at least second-order accuracy, tunable stability interval, tunable algorithmic dissipation and no overshooting behaviour. A distinctive feature is that the size of its stability interval can be adjusted to control the properties of the method. With the largest stability interval, the new method has better amplitude accuracy and smaller dispersion error for wave propagation problems, compared with some existing second-order explicit methods, and as the stability interval narrows, it shows improved period accuracy and stronger algorithmic dissipation. By selecting an appropriate stability interval, the proposed method can achieve properties better than or close to existing second-order methods, and by increasing or reducing the stability interval, it can be used with higher efficiency or stronger dissipation. The new method is applied to solve some illustrative wave propagation examples, and its numerical performance is compared with those of several widely used explicit methods.