I am trying to reproduce the results of this paper where a cable is simulated by dividing it into smaller alternating rigid segments (RFE) and spring-damping elements (SDE). The authors go on deriving the Potential, Kinetic and Dissipative contributions and after putting everything together they obtain a system of 2nd order non-linear differential equations:
$$ \ddot{q} = f(\dot{q},q,t) $$
Now I want to simulate this system numerically. Since the function $ f $ is not linear I can't use the approach suggested here. I can however try this approach:
$$ S = \begin{cases} \dot{p} = f(p,q,t) \\ \dot{q} = p \end{cases} $$
Given I am able to rewrite my system $ S $ in this form, what would you use to do the numerical simulation? Can a simple 1st order ODE solver like the one that Scipy has work?
Thanks a lot!