Single‐cell compact finite‐difference discretization of order two and four for multidimensional triharmonic problems

In this article, we discuss finite‐difference methods of order two and four for the solution of two‐and three‐dimensional triharmonic equations, where the values of u,(?²u/?n²) and (?⁴u/?n⁴) are prescribed on the boundary. For 2D case, we use 9‐ and for 3D case, we use 19‐ uniform grid points and a single computational cell. We introduce new ideas to handle the boundary conditions and do not require to discretize the boundary conditions at the boundary. The Laplacian and the biharmonic of the solution are obtained as byproduct of the methods. The resulting matrix system is solved by using the appropriate block iterative methods. Computational results are provided to demonstrate the fourth‐order accuracy of the proposed methods. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2010