Dynamic parallel Galerkin domain decomposition procedures with grid modification for parabolic equation

Dynamic parallel Galerkin domain decomposition procedures with grid modification for semi‐linear parabolic equation are given. These procedures allow one to apply different domain decompositions, different grids, and interpolation polynomials on the sub‐domains at different time levels when necessary, in order to capture time‐changing localized phenomena, such as, propagating fronts or moving layers. They rely on an implicit Galerkin method in the sub‐domains and simple explicit flux calculation on the inter‐domain boundaries by integral mean method to predict the inner‐boundary conditions. Thus, the parallelism can be achieved by these procedures. These procedures are conservative both in the sub‐domains and across inter‐boundaries. The explicit nature of the flux prediction induces a time step limitation that is necessary to preserve stability, but this constraint is less severe than that for a fully explicit method. Stability and convergence analysis in L²‐norm are derived for these procedures. The experimental results are presented to confirm the theoretical results. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.