Initial-value methods for second-order singularly perturbed boundary-value problems

In this paper, we present a numerical method for solving linear and nonlinear second-order singularly perturbed boundary-value-problems. For linear problems, the method comes from the well-known WKB method. The required approximate solution is obtained by solving the reduced problem and one or two suitable initial-value problems, directly deduced from the given problem. For nonlinear problems, the quasilinearization method is applied. Numerical results are given showing the accuracy and feasibility of the proposed method.This work was supported in part by the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Contract No. 86.02108.01 and Progetto Finalizzatto Sistemi Informatia e Calcolo Paralello, Sottoprogetto 1), and in part by the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, Rome, Italy.     

Smooth solutions of an initial-value problem for some differential difference equations

The subject matter of this paper is an initial-value problem with an initial function for a linear differential difference equation of neutral type. The problem is to find an initial function such that the solution generated by this function has some given smoothness at the points multiple of the delay. The problem is solved using a method of polynomial quasisolutions, which is based on a representation of the unknown function in the form of a polynomial of some degree. Substituting this into the initial problem yields some incorrectness in the sense of degree of polynomials, which is compensated for by introducing some residual into the equation. For this residual, an exact analytical formula as a measure of disturbance of the initial-value problem is obtained. It is shown that if a polynomial quasisolution of degree N is chosen as an initial function for the initial-value problem in question, the solution generated will have smoothness not lower than N at the abutment points.     

Initial-Value Technique for Singularly Perturbed Boundary-Value Problems for Second-Order Ordinary Differential Equations Arising in Chemical Reactor Theory

An initial-value technique is presented for solving singularly perturbed two-point boundary-value problems for linear and semilinear second-order ordinary differential equations arising in chemical reactor theory. In this technique, the required approximate solution is obtained by combining solutions of two terminal-value problems and one initial-value problem which are obtained from the original boundary-value problem through asymptotic expansion procedures. Error estimates for approximate solutions are obtained. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the present technique.     

Initial-Value Technique for Singularly-Perturbed Turning-Point Problems Exhibiting Twin Boundary Layers

The initial-value technique that was originally developed for solving singularly-perturbed nonturning-point problems (Ref. 1) is used here to solve singularly-perturbed turning-point problems exhibiting twin boundary layers. In this method, the required approximate solution is obtained by combining solutions of the reduced problem, an initial-value problem, and a terminal-value problem. Error estimates for approximate solutions are obtained. The implementation of the method on parallel architectures is discussed. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the present technique.     

Solving a nonlinear system of second order boundary value problems

In this paper, a method is presented to obtain the analytical and approximate solutions of linear and nonlinear systems of second order boundary value problems. The analytical solution is represented in the form of series in the reproducing kernel space. In the mean time, the approximate solution un(x) is obtained by the n-term intercept of the analytical solution and is proved to converge to the analytical solution. Some numerical examples are studied to demonstrate the accuracy of the present method. Results obtained by the method indicate the method is simple and effective.     

An approximate solution for linear boundary-value problems with slowly varying coefficients

In this paper, an approximate closed-form solution for linear boundary-value problems with slowly varying coefficient matrices is obtained. The derivation of the approximate solution is based on the freezing technique, which is commonly used in analyzing the stability of slowly varying initial-value problems as well as solving them. The error between the approximate and the exact solutions is given, and an upper bound on the norm of the error is obtained. This upper bound is proportional to the rate of change of the coefficient matrix of the boundary-value problem. The proposed approximate solution is obtained for a two-point boundary-value problem and is compared to its solution obtained numerically. Good agreement is observed between the approximate and the numerical solutions, when the rate of change of the coefficient matrix is small.     

Numerical method for solving the nonlinear four-point boundary value problems

In this paper, a new reproducing kernel space is constructed skillfully in order to solve a class of nonlinear four-point boundary value problems. The exact solution of the linear problem can be expressed in the form of series and the approximate solution of the nonlinear problem is given by the iterative formula. Compared with known investigations, the advantages of our method are that the representation of exact solution is obtained in a new reproducing kernel Hilbert space and accuracy of numerical computation is higher. Meanwhile we present the convergent theorem, complexity analysis and error estimation. The performance of the new method is illustrated with several numerical examples.     

An inexact Newton method for nonlinear two-point boundary-value problems

The method of quasilinearization for nonlinear two-point boundary-value problems is an application of Newton's method to a nonlinear differential operator equation. Since the linear boundary-value problem to be solved at each iteration must be discretized, it is natural to consider quasilinearization in the framework of an inexact Newton method. More importantly, each linear problem is only a local model of the nonlinear problem, and so it is inefficient to try to solve the linear problems to full accuracy. Conditions on size of the relative residual of the linear differential equation can then be specified to guarantee rapid local convergence to the solution of the nonlinear continuous problem. If initial-value techniques are used to solve the linear boundary-value problems, then an integration step selection scheme is proposed so that the residual criteria are satisfied by the approximate solutions. Numerical results are presented that demonstrate substantial computational savings by this type of economizing on the intermediate problems.This work was supported in part by DOE Contract DE-AS05-82-ER13016 and NSF Grant RII-89-17691 and was part of the author's doctoral thesis at Rice University. It is a pleasure to thank the author's thesis advisors, Professor R. A. Tapia and Professor J. E. Dennis, Jr.     

Optimal operating strategy for a long-haul liner service route

This paper proposes an optimal operating strategy problem arising in liner shipping industry that aims to determine service frequency, containership fleet deployment plan, and sailing speed for a long-haul liner service route. The problem is formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model that cannot be solved efficiently by the existing solution algorithms. In view of some unique characteristics of the liner shipping operations, this paper proposes an efficient and exact branch-and-bound based ε-optimal algorithm. In particular, a mixed-integer nonlinear model is first developed for a given service frequency and ship type; two linearization techniques are subsequently presented to approximate this model with a mixed-integer linear program; and the branch-and-bound approach controls the approximation error below a specified tolerance. This paper further demonstrates that the branch-and-bound based ε-optimal algorithm obtains a globally optimal solution with the predetermined relative optimality tolerance ε in a finite number of iterations. The case study based on an existing long-haul liner service route shows the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed solution method.     

Convergence of the homotopy perturbation method for partial differential equations

In this paper, we introduce a homotopy perturbation method to obtain exact solutions to some linear and nonlinear partial differential equations. This method is a powerful device for solving a wide variety of problems. Using the homotopy perturbation method, it is possible to find the exact solution or an approximate solution of the problem. Convergence of the method is proved. Some examples such as Burgers’, Schrödinger and fourth order parabolic partial differential equations are presented, to verify convergence hypothesis, and illustrating the efficiency and simplicity of the method.     

Functional a posteriori error estimates for incremental models in elasto-plasticity

We consider incremental problem arising in elasto-plastic models with isotropic hardening. Our goal is to derive computable and guaranteed bounds of the difference between the exact solution and any function in the admissible (energy) class of the problem considered. Such estimates are obtained by an advanced version of the variational approach earlier used for linear boundary-value problems and nonlinear variational problems with convex functionals [24, 30]. They do no contain mesh-dependent constants and are valid for any conforming approximations regardless of the method used for their derivation. It is shown that the structure of error majorant reflects properties of the exact solution so that the majorant vanishes only if an approximate solution coincides with the exact one. Moreover, it possesses necessary continuity properties, so that any sequence of approximations converging to the exact solution in the energy space generates a sequence of positive numbers (explicitly computable by the majorant functional) that tends to zero.      

Numerical solutions of partial differential equations by discrete homotopy analysis method

This paper introduces a discrete homotopy analysis method (DHAM) to obtain approximate solutions of linear or nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs). The DHAM can take the many advantages of the continuous homotopy analysis method. The proposed DHAM also contains the auxiliary parameter ?, which provides a simple way to adjust and control the convergence region of solution series. The convergence of the DHAM is proved under some reasonable hypotheses, which provide the theoretical basis of the DHAM for solving nonlinear problems. Several examples, including a simple diffusion equation and two-dimensional Burgers’ equations, are given to investigate the features of the DHAM. The numerical results obtained by this method have been compared with the exact solutions. It is shown that they are in good agreement with each other.     

Analytical solutions of the boundary layer flow of power-law fluid over a power-law stretching surface

This article discusses analytical solutions for a nonlinear problem arising in the boundary layer flow of power-law fluid over a power-law stretching surface. Using perturbation method analytical solution is presented for linear stretching surface. This solution covers large range of shear thinning and shear thickening fluids and matches excellently with the numerical solution. Furthermore, some new exact solutions are found for particular combination of m (power-law stretching index) and n (power-law fluid index). This leads to generalize the case of linear stretching to nonlinear stretching surface. The effects of fluid index n on the boundary layer thickness and the skin friction for nonlinear stretching surface is analyzed and discussed. It is observed that the boundary layer thickness and the skin friction coefficient increase as non-linear parameter n decreases. This study gives a new dimension to obtain analytical solutions asymptotically for highly nonlinear problems which to the best of our knowledge has not been examined so far.     

Boundary Value Problems for the Elliptic Sine-Gordon Equation in a Semi-strip

We study boundary value problems posed in a semistrip for the elliptic sine-Gordon equation, which is the paradigm of an elliptic integrable PDE in two variables. We use the method introduced by one of the authors, which provides a substantial generalization of the inverse scattering transform and can be used for the analysis of boundary as opposed to initial-value problems. We first express the solution in terms of a 2×2 matrix Riemann–Hilbert problem whose “jump matrix” depends on both the Dirichlet and the Neumann boundary values. For a well posed problem one of these boundary values is an unknown function. This unknown function is characterised in terms of the so-called global relation, but in general this characterisation is nonlinear. We then concentrate on the case that the prescribed boundary conditions are zero along the unbounded sides of a semistrip and constant along the bounded side. This corresponds to a case of the so-called linearisable boundary conditions, however, a major difficulty for this problem is the existence of non-integrable singularities of the function q _y at the two corners of the semistrip; these singularities are generated by the discontinuities of the boundary condition at these corners. Motivated by the recent solution of the analogous problem for the modified Helmholtz equation, we introduce an appropriate regularisation which overcomes this difficulty. Furthermore, by mapping the basic Riemann–Hilbert problem to an equivalent modified Riemann–Hilbert problem, we show that the solution can be expressed in terms of a 2×2 matrix Riemann–Hilbert problem whose “jump matrix” depends explicitly on the width of the semistrip L, on the constant value d of the solution along the bounded side, and on the residues at the given poles of a certain spectral function denoted by h(λ). The determination of the function h remains open.     

Discontinuous Galerkin approximation with discrete variational principle for the nonlinear Laplacian

A discontinuous Galerkin method is analyzed to approximate the nonlinear Laplacian model problem. The salient feature of the proposed scheme is that it is endowed with a discrete variational principle. The convergence of the discrete approximations to the exact solution is proven. To cite this article: E. Burman, A. Ern, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 346 (2008).     

Exact solution methods for uncapacitated location problems with convex transportation costs

In this paper we study exact solution methods for uncapacitated facility location problems where the transportation costs are nonlinear and convex. An exact linearization of the costs is made, enabling the formulation of the problem as an extended, linear pure zero–one location model. A branch-and-bound method based on a dual ascent and adjustment procedure is developed, and compared to application of a modified Benders decomposition method. The specific application studied is the simple plant location problem (SPLP) with spatial interaction, which is a model suitable for location of public facilities. Previously approximate solution methods have been used for this problem, while we in this paper investigate exact solution methods. Computational results are presented.     

The a posteriori Fourier method for solving the Cauchy problem for the Laplace equation with nonhomogeneous Neumann data

In the present paper, the Cauchy problem for the Laplace equation with nonhomogeneous Neumann data in an infinite “strip” domain is considered. This problem is severely ill-posed, i.e., the solution does not depend continuously on the data. A conditional stability result is given. A new a posteriori Fourier method for solving this problem is proposed. The corresponding error estimate between the exact solution and its regularization approximate solution is also proved. Numerical examples show the effectiveness of the method and the comparison of numerical effect between the a posteriori and the a priori Fourier method are also taken into account.     

A meshless procedure for transient heat conduction in functionally graded materials

A meshless numerical procedure is developed for analyzing the transient heat conduction problem in non-homogeneous functionally graded materials. In the proposed method the time derivative of temperature is approximate by the finite difference. At each time step the original nonlinear boundary value problem is transform into a hierarchy of non-homogeneous linear problem by used the homotopy analysis method. In this method a sought solution is presented by using a finite expansion in Taylor series, which consecutive elements are solutions of series linear value problems defining differential deformations. Each of linear boundary value problems with the corresponding boundary conditions is solved by using the method of fundamental solutions and radial basis functions which are used for interpolation of the inhomogeneous term. The accuracy of the obtained approximate solution is controlled by the number of components of the Taylor series, while the convergence of the process is monitored by an additional parameter of the method. Numerical experiments demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the present scheme in the solution of the heat conduction problem in nonlinear functionally graded materials. (© 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Mathematical programming via the least-squares method

The least-squares method is used to obtain a stable algorithm for a system of linear inequalities as well as linear and nonlinear programming. For these problems the solution with minimal norm for a system of linear inequalities is found by solving the non-negative least-squares (NNLS) problem. Approximate and exact solutions of these problems are discussed. Attention is mainly paid to finding the initial solution to an LP problem. For this purpose an NNLS problem is formulated, enabling finding the initial solution to the primal or dual problem, which may turn out to be optimal. The presented methods are primarily suitable for ill-conditioned and degenerate problems, as well as for LP problems for which the initial solution is not known. The algorithms are illustrated using some test problems.     

Solvability of a nonlinear model Boltzmann equation in the problem of a plane shock wave

We consider a nonlinear system of integral equations describing the structure of a plane shock wave. Based on physical reasoning, we propose an iterative method for constructing an approximate solution of this system. The problem reduces to studying decoupled scalar nonlinear and linear integral equations for the gas temperature, density, and velocity. We formulate a theorem on the existence of a positive bounded solution of a nonlinear equation of the Uryson type. We also prove theorems on the existence and uniqueness of bounded positive solutions for linear integral equations in the space L ₁[?r, r] for all finite r < +∞. For a more general nonlinear integral equation, we prove a theorem on the existence of a positive solution and also find a lower bound and an integral upper bound for the constructed solution.