Two-grid methods for finite volume element approximations of nonlinear parabolic equations

Two-grid methods are studied for solving a two dimensional nonlinear parabolic equation using finite volume element method. The methods are based on one coarse-grid space and one fine-grid space. 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. The two-grid methods achieve asymptotically optimal approximation as long as the mesh sizes satisfy h=O(H³|lnH|)$h=O\left(H^3|lnH|\right)$. As a result, solving such a large class of nonlinear parabolic equations will not be much more difficult than solving one single linearized equation.     

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.     

Analysis and finite element approximations for distributed optimal control problems for implicit parabolic equations

This work concerns analysis and error estimates for optimal control problems related to implicit parabolic equations. The minimization of the tracking functional subject to implicit parabolic equations is examined. Existence of an optimal solution is proved and an optimality system of equations is derived. Semi-discrete (in space) error estimates for the finite element approximations of the optimality system are presented. These estimates are symmetric and applicable for higher-order discretizations. Finally, fully-discrete error estimates of arbitrarily high-order are presented based on a discontinuous Galerkin (in time) and conforming (in space) scheme. Two examples related to the Lagrangian moving mesh Galerkin formulation for the convection-diffusion equation are described.     

High-order finite element methods for time-fractional partial differential equations

The aim of this paper is to develop high-order methods for solving time-fractional partial differential equations. The proposed high-order method is based on high-order finite element method for space and finite difference method for time. Optimal convergence rate O((Δt)^2−α+N^−r) is proved for the (r−1)th-order finite element method (r≥2).     

High-order adaptive finite element-singly implicit Runge-Kutta methods for parabolic differential equations

We describe an adaptive mesh refinement finite element method-of-lines procedure for solving one-dimensional parabolic partial differential equations. Solutions are calculated using Galerkin's method with a piecewise hierarchical polynomial basis in space and singly implicit Runge-Kutta (SIRK) methods in time. A modified SIRK formulation eliminates a linear systems solution that is required by the traditional SIRK formulation and leads to a new reduced-order interpolation formula. Stability and temporal error estimation techniques allow acceptance of approximate solutions at intermediate stages, yielding increased efficiency when solving partial differential equations. A priori energy estimates of the local discretization error are obtained for a nonlinear scalar problem. A posteriori estimates of local spatial discretization errors, obtained by order variation, are used with the a priori error estimates to control the adaptive mesh refinement strategy. Computational results suggest convergence of the a posteriori error estimate to the exact discretization error and verify the utility of the adaptive technique.This research was partially supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Air Force Systems Command, USAF, under Grant Number AFOSR-90-0194; the U.S. Army Research Office under Contract Number DAAL 03-91-G-0215; by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number CDA-8805910; and by a grant from the Committee on Research, Tulane University.     

Error estimates for a mixed finite element discretization of some degenerate parabolic equations

We consider a numerical scheme for a class of degenerate parabolic equations, including both slow and fast diffusion cases. A particular example in this sense is the Richards equation modeling the flow in porous media. The numerical scheme is based on the mixed finite element method (MFEM) in space, and is of one step implicit in time. The lowest order Raviart–Thomas elements are used. Here we extend the results in Radu et al. (SIAM J Numer Anal 42:1452–1478, 2004), Schneid et al. (Numer Math 98:353–370, 2004) to a more general framework, by allowing for both types of degeneracies. We derive error estimates in terms of the discretization parameters and show the convergence of the scheme. The features of the MFEM, especially of the lowest order Raviart–Thomas elements, are now fully exploited in the proof of the convergence. The paper is concluded by numerical examples.     

A finite element method for approximating the time-harmonic Maxwell equations

Summary In this paper we study the use of Nédélec's curl conforming finite elements to approximate the time-harmonic Maxwell equations on a bounded domain. The analysis is complicated by the fact that the bilinear form is not coercive, and the principle part has a very large null-space. This difficulty is circumvented by using a discrete Helmholtz decomposition of the error vector. Numerical results are presented that compare two different linear elements.Research supported in part by grants from AFOSR and NSF     

Superconvergence of the continuous Galerkin finite element method for delay-differential equation with several terms

The continuous Galerkin finite element method for linear delay-differential equation with several terms is studied. Adding some lower terms in the remainder of orthogonal expansion in an element so that the remainder satisfies more orthogonal condition in the element, and obtain a desired superclose function to finite element solution, thus the superconvergence of p  -degree finite element approximate solution on (p+1)$(p+1)$-order Lobatto points is derived.     

On the approximation of the unsteady Navier–Stokes equations by finite element projection methods

This paper provides an analysis of a fractional-step projection method to compute incompressible viscous flows by means of finite element approximations. The analysis is based on the idea that the appropriate functional setting for projection methods must accommodate two different spaces for representing the velocity fields calculated respectively in the viscous and the incompressible half steps of the method. Such a theoretical distinction leads to a finite element projection method with a Poisson equation for the incremental pressure unknown and to a very practical implementation of the method with only the intermediate velocity appearing in the numerical algorithm. Error estimates in finite time are given. An extension of the method to a problem with unconventional boundary conditions is also considered to illustrate the flexibility of the proposed method. Received October 2, 1995 / Revised version received July 9, 1997     

Finite element methods of an operator splitting applied to population balance equations

In population balance equations, the distribution of the entities depends not only on space and time but also on their own properties referred to as internal coordinates. The operator splitting method is used to transform the whole time-dependent problem into two unsteady subproblems of a smaller complexity. The first subproblem is a time-dependent convection-diffusion problem while the second one is a transient transport problem with pure advection. We use the backward Euler method to discretize the subproblems in time. Since the first problem is convection-dominated, the local projection method is applied as stabilization in space. The transport problem in the one-dimensional internal coordinate is solved by a discontinuous Galerkin method. The unconditional stability of the method will be presented. Optimal error estimates are given. Numerical tests confirm the theoretical results.     

Error and extrapolation of a compact LOD method for parabolic differential equations

This paper is concerned with a compact locally one-dimensional (LOD) finite difference method for solving two-dimensional nonhomogeneous parabolic differential equations. An explicit error estimate for the finite difference solution is given in the discrete infinity norm. It is shown that the method has the accuracy of the second-order in time and the fourth-order in space with respect to the discrete infinity norm. A Richardson extrapolation algorithm is developed to make the final computed solution fourth-order accurate in both time and space when the time step equals the spatial mesh size. Numerical results demonstrate the accuracy and the high efficiency of the extrapolation algorithm.     

A stabilized finite element method for the incompressible magnetohydrodynamic equations

Summary. We propose and analyze a stabilized finite element method for the incompressible magnetohydrodynamic equations. The numerical results that we present show a good behavior of our approximation in experiments which are relevant from an industrial viewpoint. We explain in particular in the proof of our convergence theorem why it may be interesting to stabilize the magnetic equation as soon as the hydrodynamic diffusion is small and even if the magnetic diffusion is large. This observation is confirmed by our numerical tests. Received August 31, 1998 / Revised version received June 16, 1999 / Published online June 21, 2000     

Space–time discontinuous Galerkin finite element method for shallow water flows

A space–time discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element method is presented for the shallow water equations over varying bottom topography. The method results in nonlinear equations per element, which are solved locally by establishing the element communication with a numerical HLLC flux. To deal with spurious oscillations around discontinuities, we employ a dissipation operator only around discontinuities using Krivodonova's discontinuity detector. The numerical scheme is verified by comparing numerical and exact solutions, and validated against a laboratory experiment involving flow through a contraction. We conclude that the method is second order accurate in both space and time for linear polynomials.     

On spectral methods for Volterra-type integro-differential equations

This paper considers the spectral methods for a Volterra-type integro-differential equation. Firstly, the Volterra-type integro-differential equation is equivalently restated as two integral equations of the second kind. Secondly, a Legendre-collocation method is used to solve them. Then the error analysis is conducted based on the _L∞$L_{\infty }$-norm. In addition, numerical results are presented to confirm our analysis.     

The spectral methods for parabolic Volterra integro-differential equations

In this paper we study the numerical solutions to parabolic Volterra integro-differential equations in one-dimensional bounded and unbounded spatial domains. In a bounded domain, the given parabolic Volterra integro-differential equation is converted to two equivalent equations. Then, a Legendre-collocation method is used to solve them and finally a linear algebraic system is obtained. For an unbounded case, we use the algebraic mapping to transfer the problem on a bounded domain and then apply the same presented approach for the bounded domain. In both cases, some numerical examples are presented to illustrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method.     

Discrete approximations of BV solutions to doubly nonlinear degenerate parabolic equations

Summary. In this paper we present and analyse certain discrete approximations of solutions to scalar, doubly nonlinear degenerate, parabolic problems of the form under the very general structural condition . To mention only a few examples: the heat equation, the porous medium equation, the two-phase flow equation, hyperbolic conservation laws and equations arising from the theory of non-Newtonian fluids are all special cases of (P). Since the diffusion terms a(s) and b(s) are allowed to degenerate on intervals, shock waves will in general appear in the solutions of (P). Furthermore, weak solutions are not uniquely determined by their data. For these reasons we work within the framework of weak solutions that are of bounded variation (in space and time) and, in addition, satisfy an entropy condition. The well-posedness of the Cauchy problem (P) in this class of so-called BV entropy weak solutions follows from a work of Yin [18]. The discrete approximations are shown to converge to the unique BV entropy weak solution of (P). Received November 10, 1998 / Revised version received June 10, 1999 / Published online June 8, 2000     

The finite element method for parabolic equations

Summary In this first of two papers, computable a posteriori estimates of the space discretization error in the finite element method of lines solution of parabolic equations are analyzed for time-independent space meshes. The effectiveness of the error estimator is related to conditions on the solution regularity, mesh family type, and asymptotic range for the mesh size. For clarity the results are limited to a model problem in which piecewise linear elements in one space dimension are used. The results extend straight-forwardly to systems of equations and higher order elements in one space dimension, while the higher dimensional case requires additional considerations. The theory presented here provides the basis for the analysis and adaptive construction of time-dependent space meshes, which is the subject of the second paper. Computational results show that the approach is practically very effective and suggest that it can be used for solving more general problems.The work was partially supported by ONR Contract N00014-77-C-0623     

Domain decomposition and splitting methods for Mortar mixed finite element approximations to parabolic equations

Summary We introduce in this article a new domain decomposition algorithm for parabolic problems that combines Mortar Mixed Finite Element methods for the space discretization with operator splitting schemes for the time discretization. The main advantage of this method is to be fully parallel. The algorithm is proven to be unconditionally stable and a convergence result in (Δt/h ^1/2) is presented.