An explicit finite‐difference method for the approximate solutions of a generic class of anharmonic dissipative nonlinear media

We develop an explicit finite‐difference method to approximate solutions of modified, Fermi–Pasta–Ulam media, which consider the presence of parameters, such as external damping, relativistic mass, a coefficient for the nonlinear term, and a coefficient of coupling in the case of discrete systems. We propose discrete expressions to approximate consistently the total energy of the system and the average energy flux, and prove that the discrete rate of change of energy is a consistent estimate of its continuous counterpart. The method is thoroughly tested in the energy domain, and our results show that the method gives an approximately constant energy in the case of conservative systems, which fluctuates within a narrow margin of error that may be attributed to truncation errors. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 2010