Two-grid finite volume element methods for semilinear parabolic problems

Two-grid finite volume element methods, based on two linear conforming finite element spaces on one coarse grid and one fine grid, are presented and studied for two-dimensional semilinear parabolic problems. With the proposed techniques, solving the nonsymmetric and nonlinear system on the fine space is reduced to solving a symmetric and linear system on the fine space and solving the nonsymmetric and nonlinear system on a much smaller space. Convergence estimates are derived to justify the efficiency of the proposed two-grid algorithms. It is proved that the coarse grid can be much coarser than the fine grid. As a result, solving such a large class of semilinear parabolic problems will not be much more difficult than solving one single linearized equation. In the end a numerical example is presented to validate the usefulness and efficiency of the method.     

A two-grid method for finite volume element approximations of second-order nonlinear hyperbolic equations

The two-grid method is studied for solving a two-dimensional second-order nonlinear hyperbolic equation using finite volume element method. The method is based on two different finite element spaces defined on one coarse grid with grid size H and one fine grid with grid size h, respectively. The nonsymmetric and nonlinear iterations are only executed on the coarse grid and the fine grid solution can be obtained in a single symmetric and linear step. It is proved that the coarse grid can be much coarser than the fine grid. A prior error estimate in the H¹-norm is proved to be O(h+H³|lnH|) for the two-grid semidiscrete finite volume element method. With these proposed techniques, solving such a large class of second-order nonlinear hyperbolic equations will not be much more difficult than solving one single linearized equation. Finally, a numerical example is presented to validate the usefulness and efficiency of the method.     

Least-squares mixed finite element methods for non-selfadjoint elliptic problems: I. Error estimates

Summary. A least-squares mixed finite element method for general second-order non-selfadjoint elliptic problems in two- and three-dimensional domains is formulated and analyzed. The finite element spaces for the primary solution approximation and the flux approximation consist of piecewise polynomials of degree and respectively. The method is mildly nonconforming on the boundary. The cases and are studied. It is proved that the method is not subject to the LBB-condition. Optimal - and -error estimates are derived for regular finite element partitions. Numerical experiments, confirming the theoretical rates of convergence, are presented. Received October 15, 1993 / Revised version received August 2, 1994     

Multigrid method for coupled semilinear elliptic equation

This paper introduces a kind of multigrid finite element method for the coupled semilinear elliptic equations. Instead of the common way of directly solving the coupled semilinear elliptic problems on some fine spaces, the presented method transforms the solution of the coupled semilinear elliptic problem into a series of solutions of the corresponding decoupled linear boundary value problems on the sequence of multilevel finite element spaces and some coupled semilinear elliptic problems on a very low dimensional space. The decoupled linearized boundary value problems can be solved by some multigrid iterations efficiently. The optimal error estimate and optimal computational work are proved theoretically and demonstrated numerically. Moreover, the requirement of bounded second‐order derivatives of the nonlinear term in the existing multigrid method is reduced to a Lipschitz continuous condition in the proposed method.     

Finite element methods with numerical quadrature for elliptic problems with smooth interfaces

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of the numerical quadrature on the finite element approximation to the exact solution of elliptic equations with discontinuous coefficients. Due to low global regularity of the solution, it seems difficult to achieve optimal order of convergence with classical finite element methods [Z. Chen, J. Zou, Finite element methods and their convergence for elliptic and parabolic interface problems, Numer. Math. 79 (1998) 175-202]. We derive error estimates in finite element method with quadrature for elliptic interface problems in a two-dimensional convex polygonal domain. Optimal order error estimates in L² and H¹ norms are shown to hold even if the regularity of the solution is low on the whole domain. Finally, numerical experiment for two dimensional test problem is presented in support of our theoretical findings.     

Superconvergence analysis and error expansion for the Wilson nonconforming finite element

Summary. In this paper the Wilson nonconforming finite element is considered for solving a class of two-dimensional second-order elliptic boundary value problems. Superconvergence estimates and error expansions are obtained for both uniform and non-uniform rectangular meshes. A new lower bound of the error shows that the usual error estimates are optimal. Finally a discussion on the error behaviour in negative norms shows that there is generally no improvement in the order by going to weaker norms. Received July 5, 1993     

Maximum Norm Estimates for Finite Volume Element Method for Non-selfadjoint and Indefinite Elliptic Problems

In this paper, we establish the maximum norm estimates of the solutions of the finite volume element method (FVE) based on the P1 conforming element for the non-selfadjoint and indefinite elliptic problems.     

Finite element methods and their convergence for elliptic and parabolic interface problems

In this paper, we consider the finite element methods for solving second order elliptic and parabolic interface problems in two-dimensional convex polygonal domains. Nearly the same optimal -norm and energy-norm error estimates as for regular problems are obtained when the interfaces are of arbitrary shape but are smooth, though the regularities of the solutions are low on the whole domain. The assumptions on the finite element triangulation are reasonable and practical. Received July 7, 1996 / Revised version received March 3, 1997     

Guaranteed error bounds for finite element approximations of noncoercive elliptic problems and their applications

In this paper, we discuss with guaranteed a priori and a posteriori error estimates of finite element approximations for not necessarily coercive linear second order Dirichlet problems. Here, ‘guaranteed’ means we can get the error bounds in which all constants included are explicitly given or represented as a numerically computable form. Using the invertibility condition of concerning elliptic operator, guaranteed a priori and a posteriori error estimates are formulated. This kind of estimates plays essential and important roles in the numerical verification of solutions for nonlinear elliptic problems. Several numerical examples that confirm the actual effectiveness of the method are presented.     

An application of the Kantorovich theoremto nonlinear finite element analysis

Summary. Finite element solutions of strongly nonlinear elliptic boundary value problems are considered. In this paper, using the Kantorovich theorem, we show that, if the Fréchet derivative of the nonlinear operator defined by the boundary value problem is an isomorphism at an exact solution, then there exists a locally unique finite element solution near the exact solution. Moreover, several a priori error estimates are obtained. Received March 2, 1998 / Published online September 7, 1999     

Error estimates of the lumped mass finite element method for semilinear elliptic problems

We are concerned with the semilinear elliptic problems. We first investigate the L²-error estimate for the lumped mass finite element method. We then use the cascadic multigrid method to solve the corresponding discrete problem. On the basis of the finite element error estimates, we prove the optimality of the proposed multigrid method. We also report some numerical results to support the theory.     

非自共轭和不定椭圆问题的有限体积元方法的一致收敛性

In this paper, we prove the existence, uniqueness and uniform convergence of the solution of finite volume element method based on the P1 conforming element for non-selfadjoint and indefinite elliptic problems under minimal elliptic regularity assumption.     

Multilevel iterative methods for mixed finite element discretizations of elliptic problems

Summary For solving second order elliptic problems discretized on a sequence of nested mixed finite element spaces nearly optimal iterative methods are proposed. The methods are within the general framework of the product (multiplicative) scheme for operators in a Hilbert space, proposed recently by Bramble, Pasciak, Wang, and Xu [5,6,26,27] and make use of certain multilevel decomposition of the corresponding spaces for the flux variable.     

A mixed finite element method for solving the nonstationary stokes equation

Summary This paper deals with a mixed finite element method for approximating a fourth order initial value problem arising from the nonstationary Stokes problem. For piecewise linear shape functions error estimates are given with convergence rates similar to the elliptic case. Some numerical computations will illustrate the theoretical results.     

Schwarz alternating and iterative refinement methods for mixed formulations of elliptic problems,part II: Convergence theory

Summary In this paper we discuss bounds for the convergence rates of several domain decomposition algorithms to solve symmetric, indefinite linear systems arising from mixed finite element discretizations of elliptic problems. The algorithms include Schwarz methods and iterative refinement methods on locally refined grids. The implementation of Schwarz and iterative refinement algorithms have been discussed in part I. A discussion on the stability of mixed discretizations on locally refined grids is included and quantiative estimates for the convergence rates of some iterative refinement algorithms are also derived.Department of Mathematics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071-3036. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant NSF-CCR-8903003, while the author was a graduate student at New York University, and in part by NSF Grant ASC 9003002, while the author was a Visiting, Assistant Researcher at UCLA.     

Two-level hierarchically preconditioned conjugate gradient methods for solving linear elasticity finite element equations

In this paper we study and compare some preconditioned conjugate gradient methods for solving large-scale higher-order finite element schemes approximating two- and three-dimensional linear elasticity boundary value problems. The preconditioners discussed in this paper are derived from hierarchical splitting of the finite element space first proposed by O. Axelsson and I. Gustafsson. We especially focus our attention to the implicit construction of preconditioning operators by means of some fixpoint iteration process including multigrid techniques. Many numerical experiments confirm the efficiency of these preconditioners in comparison with classical direct methods most frequently used in practice up to now.     

A residual based error estimator for mortar finite element discretizations

Summary. A residual based error estimator for the approximation of linear elliptic boundary value problems by nonconforming finite element methods is introduced and analyzed. In particular, we consider mortar finite element techniques restricting ourselves to geometrically conforming domain decomposition methods using P1 approximations in each subdomain. Additionally, a residual based error estimator for Crouzeix-Raviart elements of lowest order is presented and compared with the error estimator obtained in the more general mortar situation. It is shown that the computational effort of the error estimator can be considerably reduced if the special structure of the Lagrange multiplier is taken into account. Received July 18, 1997 / Revised version received July 27, 1998 / Published online September 7, 1999     

Schwarz alternating and iterative refinement methods for mixed formulations of elliptic problems,part I: Algorithms and numerical results

Summary We describe sequential and parallel algorithms based on the Schwarz alternating method for the solution of mixed finite element discretizations of elliptic problems using the Raviart-Thomas finite element spaces. These lead to symmetric indefinite linear systems and the algorithms have some similarities with the traditional block Gauss-Seidel or block Jacobi methods with overlapping blocks. The indefiniteness requires special treatment. The sub-blocks used in the algorithm correspond to problems on a coarse grid and some overlapping subdomains and is based on a similar partition used in an algorithm of Dryja and Widlund for standard elliptic problems. If there is sufficient overlap between the subdomains, the algorithm converges with a rate independent of the mesh size, the number of subdomains and discontinuities of the coefficients. Extensions of the above algorithms to the case of local grid refinement is also described. Convergence theory for these algorithms will be presented in a subsequent paper.This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant NSF-CCR-8903003, while the author was a graduate student at New York University, and in part by the Army Research Office under Grant DAAL 03-91-G-0150, while the author was a Visiting Assistant Researcher at UCLA     

Rate of Convergence for some constraint decomposition methods for nonlinear variational inequalities

Summary. Some general subspace correction algorithms are proposed for a convex optimization problem over a convex constraint subset. One of the nontrivial applications of the algorithms is the solving of some obstacle problems by multilevel domain decomposition and multigrid methods. For domain decomposition and multigrid methods, the rate of convergence for the algorithms for obstacle problems is of the same order as the rate of convergence for jump coefficient linear elliptic problems. In order to analyse the convergence rate, we need to decompose a finite element function into a sum of functions from the subspaces and also satisfying some constraints. A special nonlinear interpolation operator is introduced for decomposing the functions. Received December 13, 2001 / Revised version received February 19, 2002 / Published online June 17, 2002 This work was partially supported by the Norwegian Research Council under projects 128224/431 and SEP-115837/431.     

An algorithm using the finite volume element method and its splitting extrapolation

This paper is to present a new efficient algorithm by using the finite volume element method and its splitting extrapolation. This method combines the local conservation property of the finite volume element method and the advantages of splitting extrapolation, such as a high order of accuracy, a high degree of parallelism, less computational complexity and more flexibility than a Richardson extrapolation. Because the splitting extrapolation formulas only require us to solve a set of smaller discrete subproblems on different coarser grids in parallel instead of on the globally fine grid, a large scale multidimensional problem is turned into a set of smaller discrete subproblems. Additionally, this method is efficient for solving interface problems if we regard the interfaces of the problems as the interfaces of the initial domain decomposition.