Block monotone iterative methods for numerical solutions of nonlinear elliptic equations

Summary. Two block monotone iterative schemes for a nonlinear algebraic system, which is a finite difference approximation of a nonlinear elliptic boundary-value problem, are presented and are shown to converge monotonically either from above or from below to a solution of the system. This monotone convergence result yields a computational algorithm for numerical solutions as well as an existence-comparison theorem of the system, including a sufficient condition for the uniqueness of the solution. An advantage of the block iterative schemes is that the Thomas algorithm can be used to compute numerical solutions of the sequence of iterations in the same fashion as for one-dimensional problems. The block iterative schemes are compared with the point monotone iterative schemes of Picard, Jacobi and Gauss-Seidel, and various theoretical comparison results among these monotone iterative schemes are given. These comparison results demonstrate that the sequence of iterations from the block iterative schemes converges faster than the corresponding sequence given by the point iterative schemes. Application of the iterative schemes is given to a logistic model problem in ecology and numerical ressults for a test problem with known analytical solution are given. Received August 1, 1993 / Revised version received November 7, 1994     

Numerical methods for fourth‐order nonlinear elliptic boundary value problems

The aim of this article is to present several computational algorithms for numerical solutions of a nonlinear finite difference system that represents a finite difference approximation of a class of fourth‐order elliptic boundary value problems. The numerical algorithms are based on the method of upper and lower solutions and its associated monotone iterations. Three linear monotone iterative schemes are given, and each iterative scheme yields two sequences, which converge monotonically from above and below, respectively, to a maximal solution and a minimal solution of the finite difference system. This monotone convergence property leads to upper and lower bounds of the solution in each iteration as well as an existence‐comparison theorem for the finite difference system. Sufficient conditions for the uniqueness of the solution and some techniques for the construction of upper and lower solutions are obtained, and numerical results for a two‐point boundary‐value problem with known analytical solution are given. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 17:347–368, 2001     

Accelerated monotone iterative methods for finite difference equations of reaction-diffusion

This paper is concerned with numerical methods for a finite difference system of reaction-diffusion-convection equation under nonlinear boundary condition. Various monotone iterative methods are presented, and each of these methods leads to an existence-comparison theorem as well as a computational algorithm for numerical solutions. The monotone property of the iterations gives improved upper and lower bounds of the solution in each iteration, and the rate of convergence of the iterations is either quadratic or nearly quadratic depending on the property of the nonlinear function. Application is given to a model problem from chemical engineering, and some numerical results, including a test problem with known analytical solution, are presented to illustrate the various rates of convergence of the iterations. Received November 2, 1995 / Revised version received February 10, 1997     

A block monotone iterative method for numerical solutions of nonlinear elliptic boundary value problems

The aim of this article is to develop a new block monotone iterative method for the numerical solutions of a nonlinear elliptic boundary value problem. The boundary value problem is discretized into a system of nonlinear algebraic equations, and a block monotone iterative method is established for the system using an upper solution or a lower solution as the initial iteration. The sequence of iterations can be computed in a parallel fashion and converge monotonically to a maximal solution or a minimal solution of the system. Three theoretical comparison results are given for the sequences from the proposed method and the block Jacobi monotone iterative method. The comparison results show that the sequence from the proposed method converges faster than the corresponding sequence given by the block Jacobi monotone iterative method. A simple and easily verified condition is obtained to guarantee a geometric convergence of the block monotone iterations. The numerical results demonstrate advantages of this new approach. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2011     

Numerical methods for coupled systems of quasilinear elliptic equations with nonlinear boundary conditions

This paper is concerned with numerical solutions of a coupled system of arbitrary number of quasilinear elliptic equations under combined Dirichlet and nonlinear boundary conditions. A finite difference system for a transformed system of the quasilinear equations is formulated, and three monotone iterative schemes for the computation of numerical solutions are given using the method of upper and lower solutions. It is shown that each of the three monotone iterations converges to a minimal solution or a maximal solution depending on whether the initial iteration is a lower solution or an upper solution. A comparison result among the three iterative schemes is given. Also shown is the convergence of the minimal and maximal discrete solutions to the corresponding minimal and maximal solutions of the continuous system as the mesh size tends to zero. These results are applied to a heat transfer problem with temperature dependent thermal conductivity and a Lotka-Volterra cooperation system with degenerate diffusion. This degenerate property leads to some interesting distinct property of the system when compared with the non-degenerate semilinear systems. Numerical results are given to the above problems, and in each problem an explicit continuous solution is constructed and is used to compare with the computed solution     

Numerical methods for the linear Boltzmann transport equation in slab geometry

An iterative method for computing numerical solutions of a finite-difference system corresponding to the linear Boltzmann equation in slab geometry is presented. This iterative scheme gives a straightforward marching process starting from the given boundary and initial conditions. It is shown that with a suitable initial iteration the sequence of iterations converges monotonically to a unique solution of the finite-difference system. This monotone convergence leads to improved upper and lower bounds of the solution in each iteration, and to the well-posedness of the discrete system in the sense of Hadamard. It also leads to the convergence of the discrete system to the continuous system as the mesh size of the space–velocity–time variables approaches to zero. Under a mild restriction on the time-increment the discrete system is numerically stable, independent of the mesh-size of the space and velocity. An error estimate for the computed solution due to simultaneous initial and iteration error is obtained. Also given are some numerical results for the time-dependent and the steady-state solutions.     

Monotone method and convergence acceleration for finite-difference solutions of parabolic problems with time delays

In this article we study a finite-difference system, which is a discrete version of a class of nonlinear reaction-diffusion systems with time delays. Existence-comparison and uniqueness theorem are first established for the discretized problem by the method of upper and lower solutions. A monotone iterative scheme is also developed for the solution of the finite-difference system. Under a convergence acceleration scheme, it is shown that the monotone sequences converge quadratically to the solution of the finite-difference system. At last, numerical results on some model problems are demonstrated to substantiate our theorems. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Finite difference reaction diffusion equations with nonlinear boundary conditions

This article is concerned with numerical solutions of finite difference systems of reaction diffusion equations with nonlinear internal and boundary reaction functions. The nonlinear reaction functions are of general form and the finite difference systems are for both time-dependent and steady-state problems. For each problem a unified system of nonlinear equations is treated by the method of upper and lower solutions and its associated monotone iterations. This method leads to a monotone iterative scheme for the computation of numerical solutions as well as an existence-comparison theorem for the corresponding finite difference system. Special attention is given to the dynamical property of the time-dependent solution in relation to the steady-state solutions. Application is given to a heat-conduction problem where a nonlinear radiation boundary condition obeying the Boltzmann law of cooling is considered. This application demonstrates a bifurcation property of two steady-state solutions, and determines the dynamic behavior of the time-dependent solution. Numerical results for the heat-conduction problem, including a test problem with known analytical solution, are presented to illustrate the various theoretical conclusions. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Nonstationary monotone iterative methods for nonlinear partial differential equations

A simple technique is given in this paper for the construction and analysis of monotone iterative methods for a class of nonlinear partial differential equations. With the help of the special nonlinear property we can construct nonstationary parameters which can speed up the iterative process in solving the nonlinear system. Picard, Gauss–Seidel, and Jacobi monotone iterative methods are presented and analyzed for the adaptive solutions. The adaptive meshes are generated by the 1-irregular mesh refinement scheme which together with the M-matrix of the finite element stiffness matrix lead to existence–uniqueness–comparison theorems with simple upper and lower solutions as initial iterates. Some numerical examples, including a test problem with known analytical solution, are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the adaptive and monotone properties. Numerical results of simulations on a MOSFET with the gate length down to 34 nm are also given.     

Positive solutions and dynamics of a finite difference reaction–diffusion system

We investigate the dynamics and methods of computation for some nonlinear finite difference systems that are the discretized equations of a time-dependent and a steady-state reaction–diffusion problem. The formulation of the discrete equations for the time-dependent problem is based on the implicit method for parabolic equations, and the computational algorithm is based on the method of monotone iterations using upper and lower solutions as the initial iterations. The monotone iterative method yields improved upper and lower bounds of the solution in each iteration, and the sequence of iterations converges monotonically to a solution for both the time-dependent and the steady-state problems. An important consequence of this method is that it leads to a bifurcation point that determines the dynamic behavior of the time-dependent problem in relation to the corresponding steady-state problem. This bifurcation point also determines whether the steady-state problem has one or two non-negative solutions, and is explicitly given in terms of the physical parameters of the system and the type of boundary conditions. Numerical results are presented for both the time-dependent and the steady-state problems under various boundary conditions, including a test problem with known analytical solution. These numerical results exhibit the predicted dynamic behavior of the time-dependent solution given by the theoretical analysis. Also discussed are the numerical stability of the computational algorithm and the convergence of the finite difference solution to the corresponding continuous solution of the reaction–diffusion problem. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Existence of Solutions to a Class of Fractional Differential Equations

In this paper, the existence of solutions to a class of fractional differential equations $D_{0+}^{\alpha}u(t)=h(t)f(t, u(t), D_{0+}^{\theta}u(t))$ is obtained by an efficient and simple monotone iteration method. At first, the existence of a solution to the problem above is guaranteed by finding a bounded domain $D_M$ on functions $f$ and $g$. Then, sufficient conditions for the existence of monotone solution to the problem are established by applying monotone iteration method. Moreover, two efficient iterative schemes are proposed, and the convergence of the iterative process is proved by using the monotonicity assumption on $f$ and $g$. In particular, a new algorithm which combines Gauss-Kronrod quadrature method with cubic spline interpolation method is adopted to achieve the monotone iteration method in Matlab environment, and the high-precision approximate solution is obtained. Finally, the main results of the paper are illustrated by some numerical simulations, and the approximate solutions graphs are provided by using the iterative method.     

Finite difference reaction–diffusion equations with nonlinear diffusion coefficients

Summary. A monotone iterative method for numerical solutions of a class of finite difference reaction-diffusion equations with nonlinear diffusion coefficient is presented. It is shown that by using an upper solution or a lower solution as the initial iteration the corresponding sequence converges monotonically to a unique solution of the finite difference system. It is also shown that the solution of the finite difference system converges to the solution of the continuous equation as the mesh size decreases to zero. Received February 18, 1998 / Revised version received April 21, 1999 / Published online February 17, 2000     

A modified accelerated monotone iterative method for finite difference reaction-diffusion-convection equations

This paper is concerned with monotone algorithms for the finite difference solutions of a class of nonlinear reaction-diffusion-convection equations with nonlinear boundary conditions. A modified accelerated monotone iterative method is presented to solve the finite difference systems for both the time-dependent problem and its corresponding steady-state problem. This method leads to a simple and yet efficient linear iterative algorithm. It yields two sequences of iterations that converge monotonically from above and below, respectively, to a unique solution of the system. The monotone property of the iterations gives concurrently improving upper and lower bounds for the solution. It is shown that the rate of convergence for the sum of the two sequences is quadratic. Under an additional requirement, quadratic convergence is attained for one of these two sequences. In contrast with the existing accelerated monotone iterative methods, our new method avoids computing local maxima in the construction of these sequences. An application using a model problem gives numerical results that illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Monotone iterative methods for finite difference system of reaction-diffusion equations

Summary This paper presents an existence-comparison theorem and an iterative method for a nonlinear finite difference system which corresponds to a class of semilinear parabolic and elliptic boundary-value problems. The basic idea of the iterative method for the computation of numerical solutions is the monotone approach which involves the notion of upper and lower solutions and the construction of monotone sequences from a suitable linear discrete system. Using upper and lower solutions as two distinct initial iterations, two monotone sequences from a suitable linear system are constructed. It is shown that these two sequences converge monotonically from above and below, respectively, to a unique solution of the nonlinear discrete equations. This formulation leads to a well-posed problem for the nonlinear discrete system. Applications are given to several models arising from physical, chemical and biological systems. Numerical results are given to some of these models including a discussion on the rate of convergence of the monotone sequences.     

求解带非线性边界条件的反应扩散方程数值解的组合迭代方法

1　引　　言我们首先考虑如下抛物型方程ｕｔ-ＤΔｕ =ｆ(ｘ ,ｔ ,ｕ) (ｔ∈ ( 0 ,Ｔ],ｘ∈Ω ) ｕ/ ν+ βｕ =ｇ(ｘ ,ｔ ,ｕ) (ｔ∈ ( 0 ,Ｔ],ｘ∈ Ω )ｕ(ｘ ,0 ) =ψ(ｘ) (ｘ∈Ω )( 1 .1 )其中Ｔ为正常数 ,Ω 是ＲＰ 空间的有界区域 记ＱＴ=Ω × ( 0 ,Ｔ],ＳＴ= Ω × ( 0 ,Ｔ],假设在ＱＴ上Ｄ≡ｄ(ｘ ,ｔ) >0 ,在ＳＴ 上β≡β(ｘ ,ｔ)≥ 0 又设 ｆ(ｘ ,ｔ,ｕ) ,ｇ(ｘ ,ｔ,ｕ)为关于ｕ的非线性函数 ,且对ｘ ,ｔ各参数满足Ｈ¨ｏｌｄｅｒ连续条件 将 ( 1 .1 )离散化之后我们得到相应的有限差分系统 ,当 ｇ(ｘ ,ｔ,ｕ)为ｕ的线性…     

Monotone schemes for a class of nonlinear elliptic and parabolic problems

We construct monotone numerical schemes for a class of nonlinear PDE for elliptic and initial value problems for parabolic problems. The elliptic part is closely connected to a linear elliptic operator, which we discretize by monotone schemes, and solve the nonlinear problem by iteration. We assume that the elliptic differential operator is in the divergence form, with measurable coefficients satisfying the strict ellipticity condition, and that the right-hand side is a positive Radon measure. The numerical schemes are not derived from finite difference operators approximating differential operators, but rather from a general principle which ensures the convergence of approximate solutions. The main feature of these schemes is that they possess stencils stretching far from basic grid-rectangles, thus leading to system matrices which are related to M-matrices.     

求解一类反应扩散方程组数值解的组合单调迭代法

给出一类求解带非线性边界条件的反应扩散方程组的组合单调迭代法,证明了当反应项和边界条件具有拟单调性和迭代充阢的单调收敛性以及数值方法的稳定性。     

Numerical solution of a thermomechanical coupled model governing glacier evolution

In this paper the numerical solution of a highly nonlinear model for the thermomechanical behavior of polythermal glaciers is presented. The modeling follows the shallow ice approximation (SIA) for glaciers introduced in Fowler (1997) [13]. The model has been extended to incorporate additional moving boundaries and other nonlinear features. Moreover, a fixed domain formulation is proposed to avoid the computational drawbacks of a time-dependent domain in the numerical simulation with front tracking methods. In this setting, the coupled problem is decomposed into different nonlinear problems which allow one to obtain sequentially the profile evolution, the velocity field, the glacier surface and atmospheric temperatures, basal magnitudes and the temperature distribution inside the ice mass. A fixed point iteration algorithm converges to the solution of the nonlinear coupled problem. Among different numerical methods involved in the solution of the subproblems, characteristic schemes for time discretization, finite elements for spatial discretization, duality methods for the nonlinearities associated to maximal monotone operators and a Newton scheme for the nonlinear viscous term are proposed. Several numerical simulation examples illustrate the performance of the numerical methods and the behavior of the involved physical magnitudes.     

Numerical solutions of coupled systems of nonlinear elliptic equations

This article deals with numerical solutions of a general class of coupled nonlinear elliptic equations. Using the method of upper and lower solutions, monotone sequences are constructed for difference schemes which approximate coupled systems of nonlinear elliptic equations. This monotone convergence leads to existence‐uniqueness theorems for solutions to problems with reaction functions of quasi‐monotone nondecreasing, quasi‐monotone nonincreasing and mixed quasi‐monotone types. A monotone domain decomposition algorithm which combines the monotone approach and an iterative domain decomposition method based on the Schwarz alternating, is proposed. An application to a reaction‐diffusion model in chemical engineering is given. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 28: 621–640, 2012     

On finite element schemes of the dirichlet problem

In this paper, we consider finite element schemes applied to the Dirichlet problem for the system of nonlinear elliptic equations, based on piecewise linear polynomials, and present iterative methods for solving algebraic nonlinear equations, which construct monotone sequences. Furthermore, we derive error estimates which imply uniform convergence. Our results are based on the discrete maximum principle. Finally, some typical numerical examples are given to demonstrate the usefulness of convergence results.