<Emphasis Type="Italic">hp</Emphasis>-Discontinuous Galerkin methods for strongly nonlinear elliptic boundary value problems

In this paper, we have analyzed a one parameter family of hp-discontinuous Galerkin methods for strongly nonlinear elliptic boundary value problems with Dirichlet boundary conditions. These methods depend on the values of the parameter , where θ = + 1 corresponds to the nonsymmetric and θ = −1 corresponds to the symmetric interior penalty methods when and f(u,∇u) = −f, that is, for the Poisson problem. The error estimate in the broken H ¹ norm, which is optimal in h (mesh size) and suboptimal in p (degree of approximation) is derived using piecewise polynomials of degree p ≥ 2, when the solution . In the case of linear elliptic problems also, this estimate is optimal in h and suboptimal in p. Further, optimal error estimate in the L ² norm when θ = −1 is derived. Numerical experiments are presented to illustrate the theoretical results. Supported by DST-DAAD (PPP-05) project.     

A p-version finite element method for nonlinear elliptic variational inequalities in 2D

This article introduces and analyzes a p-version FEM for variational inequalities resulting from obstacle problems for some quasi-linear elliptic partial differential operators. We approximate the solution by controlling the obstacle condition in images of the Gauss–Lobatto points. We show existence and uniqueness for the discrete solution u _p from the p-version for the obstacle problem. We prove the convergence of u _p towards the solution with respect to the energy norm, and assuming some additional regularity for the solution we derive an a priori error estimate. In numerical experiments the p-version turns out to be superior to the h-version concerning the convergence rate and the number of unknowns needed to achieve a certain exactness of the approximation.     

Interpolation error estimates in W 1,p for degenerate Q 1 isoparametric elements

Optimal order error estimates in H ¹, for the Q ₁ isoparametric interpolation were obtained in Acosta and Durán (SIAM J Numer Anal37, 18–36, 1999) for a very general class of degenerate convex quadrilateral elements. In this work we show that the same conlusions are valid in W ^1,p for 1≤ p < 3 and we give a counterexample for the case p ≥ 3, showing that the result cannot be generalized for more regular functions. Despite this fact, we show that optimal order error estimates are valid for any p ≥ 1, keeping the interior angles of the element bounded away from 0 and π, independently of the aspect ratio. We also show that the restriction on the maximum angle is sharp for p ≥ 3.     

Convergence results for the MATLAB ode23 routine

We prove convergence results on finite time intervals, as the user-defined tolerance τ→0, for a class of adaptive timestepping ODE solvers that includes the ode23 routine supplied in MATLAB Version 4.2. In contrast to existing theories, these convergence results hold with error constants that are uniform in the neighbourhood of equilibria; such uniformity is crucial for the derivation of results concerning the numerical approximation of dynamical systems. For linear problems the error estimates are uniform on compact sets of initial data. The analysis relies upon the identification of explicit embedded Runge-Kutta pairs for which all but the leading order terms of the expansion of the local error estimate areO(∥f(u∥)²). This work was partially supported by NSF Grant DMS-95-04879.     

Multigrid methods for the computation of singular solutions and stress intensity factors II: Crack singularities

We consider the Poisson equation −Δu=f with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition on a two-dimensional polygonal domain Ω with cracks. Multigrid methods for the computation of singular solutions and stress intensity factors using piecewise linear functions are analyzed. The convergence rate for the stress intensity factors is whenfεL ²(Ω) and whenfεH ¹(Ω). The convergence rate in the energy norm is in the first case and in the second case. The costs of these multigrid methods are proportional to the number of elements in the triangulation. The general case wherefεH ^m (Ω) is also discussed. The work of the first author was partially supported by NSF under grant DMS-96-00133     

Quadratic spline collocation methods for elliptic partial differential equations

We consider Quadratic Spline Collocation (QSC) methods for linear second order elliptic Partial Differential Equations (PDEs). The standard formulation of these methods leads to non-optimal approximations. In order to derive optimal QSC approximations, high order perturbations of the PDE problem are generated. These perturbations can be applied either to the PDE problem operators or to the right sides, thus leading to two different formulations of optimal QSC methods. The convergence properties of the QSC methods are studied. OptimalO(h ^3–j ) global error estimates for thejth partial derivative are obtained for a certain class of problems. Moreover,O(h ^4–j ) error bounds for thejth partial derivative are obtained at certain sets of points. Results from numerical experiments verify the theoretical behaviour of the QSC methods. Performance results also show that the QSC methods are very effective from the computational point of view. They have been implemented efficiently on parallel machines.This research was supported in part by David Ross Foundation (U.S.A) and NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada).     

Error analysis of finite element approximations of the inverse mean curvature flow arising from the general relativity

This paper proposes and analyzes a finite element method for a nonlinear singular elliptic equation arising from the black hole theory in the general relativity. The nonlinear equation, which was derived and analyzed by Huisken and Ilmanen in (J Diff Geom 59:353–437), represents a level set formulation for the inverse mean curvature flow describing the evolution of a hypersurface whose normal velocity equals the reciprocal of its mean curvature. We first propose a finite element method for a regularized flow which involves a small parameter ɛ; a rigorous analysis is presented to study well-posedness and convergence of the scheme under certain mesh-constraints, and optimal rates of convergence are verified. We then prove uniform convergence of the finite element solution to the unique weak solution of the nonlinear singular elliptic equation as the mesh size h and the regularization parameter ɛ both tend to zero. Computational results are provided to show the efficiency of the proposed finite element method and to numerically validate the “jumping out” phenomenon of the weak solution of the inverse mean curvature flow. Numerical studies are presented to evidence the existence of a polynomial scaling law between the mesh size h and the regularization parameter ɛ for optimal convergence of the proposed scheme. Finally, a numerical convergence study for another approach recently proposed by R. Moser (The inverse mean curvature flow and p-harmonic functions. preprint U Bath, 2005) for approximating the inverse mean curvature flow via p-harmonic functions is also included.     

An oscillation-free adaptive FEM for symmetric eigenvalue problems

A refined a posteriori error analysis for symmetric eigenvalue problems and the convergence of the first-order adaptive finite element method (AFEM) is presented. The H ¹ stability of the L ² projection provides reliability and efficiency of the edge-contribution of standard residual-based error estimators for P ₁ finite element methods. In fact, the volume contributions and even oscillations can be omitted for Courant finite element methods. This allows for a refined averaging scheme and so improves (Mao et al. in Adv Comput Math 25(1–3):135–160, 2006). The proposed AFEM monitors the edge-contributions in a bulk criterion and so enables a contraction property up to higher-order terms and global convergence. Numerical experiments exploit the remaining L ² error contributions and confirm our theoretical findings. The averaging schemes show a high accuracy and the AFEM leads to optimal empirical convergence rates.     

Algebraic convergence for anisotropic edge elements in polyhedral domains

We study approximation errors for the h-version of Nédélec edge elements on anisotropically refined meshes in polyhedra. Both tetrahedral and hexahedral elements are considered, and the emphasis is on obtaining optimal convergence rates in the H(curl) norm for higher order elements. Two types of estimates are presented: First, interpolation error estimates for functions in anisotropic weighted Sobolev spaces. Here we consider not only the H(curl)-conforming Nédélec elements, but also the H(div)-conforming Raviart-Thomas elements which appear naturally in the discrete version of the de Rham complex. Our technique is to transport error estimates from the reference element to the physical element via highly anisotropic coordinate transformations. Second, Galerkin error estimates for the standard H(curl) approximation of time harmonic Maxwell equations. Here we use the anisotropic weighted Sobolev regularity of the solution on domains with three-dimensional edges and corners. We also prove the discrete compactness property needed for the convergence of the Maxwell eigenvalue problem. Our results generalize those of [40] to the case of polyhedral corners and higher order elements.     

A trapping principle and convergence result for finite element approximate solutions of steady reaction/diffusion systems

We consider nonlinear elliptic systems, with mixed boundary conditions, on a convex polyhedral domain Ω ⊂ R ^N . These are nonlinear divergence form generalizations of Δu = f(·, u), where f is outward pointing on the trapping region boundary. The motivation is that of applications to steady-state reaction/diffusion systems. Also included are reaction/diffusion/convection systems which satisfy the Einstein relations, for which the Cole-Hopf transformation is possible. For maximum generality, the theory is not tied to any specific application. We are able to demonstrate a trapping principle for the piecewise linear Galerkin approximation, defined via a lumped integration hypothesis on integrals involving f, by use of variational inequalities. Results of this type have previously been obtained for parabolic systems by Estep, Larson, and Williams, and for nonlinear elliptic equations by Karátson and Korotov. Recent minimum and maximum principles have been obtained by Jüngel and Unterreiter for nonlinear elliptic equations. We make use of special properties of the element stiffness matrices, induced by a geometric constraint upon the simplicial decomposition. This constraint is known as the non-obtuseness condition. It states that the inward normals, associated with an arbitrary pair of an element’s faces, determine an angle with nonpositive cosine. Drăgănescu, Dupont, and Scott have constructed an example for which the discrete maximum principle fails if this condition is omitted. We also assume vertex communication in each element in the form of an irreducibility hypothesis on the off-diagonal elements of the stiffness matrix. There is a companion convergence result, which yields an existence theorem for the solution. This entails a consistency hypothesis for interpolation on the boundary, and depends on the Tabata construction of simple function approximation, based on barycentric regions. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant DMS-0311263.     

A posteriori error estimates for mixed finite element approximations of elliptic problems

We derive residual based a posteriori error estimates of the flux in L ²-norm for a general class of mixed methods for elliptic problems. The estimate is applicable to standard mixed methods such as the Raviart–Thomas–Nedelec and Brezzi–Douglas–Marini elements, as well as stabilized methods such as the Galerkin-Least squares method. The element residual in the estimate employs an elementwise computable postprocessed approximation of the displacement which gives optimal order.     

On acceleration methods for coupled nonlinear elliptic systems

Summary We compare both numerically and theoretically three techniques for accelerating the convergence of a nonlinear fixed point iterationuT(u), arising from a coupled elliptic system: Chebyshev acceleration, a second order stationary method, and a nonlinear version of the Generalized Minimal Residual Algorithm (GMRES) which we call NLGMR. All three approaches are implemented in Jacobian-free mode, i.e., only a subroutine which returnsT(u) as a function ofu is required.We present a set of numerical comparisons for the drift-diffusion semiconductor model. For the mappingT which corresponds to the nonlinear block Gauß-Seidel algorithm for the solution of this nonlinear elliptic system, NLGMR is found to be superior to the second order stationary method and the Chebychev acceleration. We analyze the local convergence of the nonlinear iterations in terms of the spectrum [T _u (u ^(*))] of the derivativeT _u at the solutionu ^(*). The convergence of the original iteration is governed by the spectral radius [T _U (u ^(*))]. In contrast, the convergence of the two second order accelerations are related to the convex hull of [T _u (u ^(*))], while the convergence of the GMRES-based approach is related to the local clustering in [I–T _u (u ^(*))]. The spectrum [I–T _u (u ^(*))] clusters only at 1 due to the successive inversions of elliptic partial differential equations inT. We explain the observed superiority of GMRES over the second order acceleration by its ability to take advantage of this clustering feature, which is shared by similar coupled nonlinear elliptic systems.     

A finite difference analysis of a streamline diffusion method on a Shishkin mesh

We consider streamline diffusion finite element methods applied to a singularly perturbed convection–diffusion two‐point boundary value problem whose solution has a single boundary layer. To analyse the convergence of these methods, we rewrite them as finite difference schemes. We first consider arbitrary meshes, then, in analysing the scheme on a Shishkin mesh, we consider two formulations on the fine part of the mesh: the usual streamline diffusion upwinding and the standard Galerkin method. The error estimates are given in the discrete L _∞ norm; in particular we give the first analysis that shows precisely how the error depends on the user-chosen parameter _τ0 specifying the mesh. When _τ0 is too small, the error becomes O(1), but for _τ0 above a certain threshold value, the error is small and increases either linearly or quadratically as a function of . Numerical tests support our theoretical results. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Finite element methods with numerical quadrature for elliptic problems with smooth interfaces

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of the numerical quadrature on the finite element approximation to the exact solution of elliptic equations with discontinuous coefficients. Due to low global regularity of the solution, it seems difficult to achieve optimal order of convergence with classical finite element methods [Z. Chen, J. Zou, Finite element methods and their convergence for elliptic and parabolic interface problems, Numer. Math. 79 (1998) 175-202]. We derive error estimates in finite element method with quadrature for elliptic interface problems in a two-dimensional convex polygonal domain. Optimal order error estimates in L² and H¹ norms are shown to hold even if the regularity of the solution is low on the whole domain. Finally, numerical experiment for two dimensional test problem is presented in support of our theoretical findings.     

A posteriori error estimates for elliptic problems with Dirac delta source terms

The aim of this paper is to introduce residual type a posteriori error estimators for a Poisson problem with a Dirac delta source term, in L ^p norm and W^1,p seminorm. The estimators are proved to yield global upper and local lower bounds for the corresponding norms of the error. They are used to guide adaptive procedures, which are experimentally shown to lead to optimal orders of convergence.     

A fully discrete numerical scheme for weighted mean curvature flow

Summary. We analyze a fully discrete numerical scheme approximating the evolution of n–dimensional graphs under anisotropic mean curvature. The highly nonlinear problem is discretized by piecewise linear finite elements in space and semi–implicitly in time. The scheme is unconditionally stable und we obtain optimal error estimates in natural norms. We also present numerical examples which confirm our theoretical results. Received October 2, 2000 / Published online July 25, 2001     

Robust multigrid method for the planar linear elasticity problems

We consider the solution of the system of equations that arise from the higher order conforming finite element (Scott–Vogelius element) discretizations of the boundary value problems associated with the differential operator −ρ ² Δ − κ ²∇div, where ρ and κ are nonzero parameters. Robust multigrid method is constructed, i.e., the convergence rate of multigrid method is optimal with respect to the mesh size, the number of levels, and weights on the two terms in the aforementioned differential operator.

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On computing the pressure by thep version of the finite element method for Stokes problem

Summary This paper introduces and analyzes two ways of extracting the hydrostatic pressure when solving Stokes problem using thep version of the finite element method. When one uses a localH ¹ projection, we show that optimal rates of convergence for the pressure approximation is achieved. When the pressure is not inH ¹. or the value of the pressure is only needed at a few points, one may extract the pressure pointwise using e.g. a single layer potential recovery. Negative, zero, and higher norm estimates for the Stokes velocity are derived within the framework of thep version of the F.E.M.Partially supported by ONR grants N00014-87-K-0427 and N00014-90-J-1238     

A finite volume scheme for nonlinear parabolic equations derived from one-dimensional local dirichlet problems

In this paper, we propose a new method to compute the numerical flux of a finite volume scheme, used for the approximation of the solution of the nonlinear partial differential equation u_t+div(qf(u))−ΔΦ(u)=0 in a 1D, 2D or 3D domain. The function Φ is supposed to be strictly increasing, but some values s such that Φ′(s)=0 can exist. The method is based on the solution, at each interface between two control volumes, of the nonlinear elliptic two point boundary value problem (qf(υ)+(Φ(υ))′)′=0 with Dirichlet boundary conditions given by the values of the discrete approximation in both control volumes. We prove the existence of a solution to this two point boundary value problem. We show that the expression for the numerical flux can be yielded without referring to this solution. Furthermore, we prove that the so designed finite volume scheme has the expected stability properties and that its solution converges to the weak solution of the continuous problem. Numerical results show the increase of accuracy due to the use of this scheme, compared to some other schemes.     

On the asymptotic expansion of the solution of the plane Stokes problem in a perforated domain

This article deals with the asymptotic behavior as ε → 0 of the solution {u _ɛ, p _ɛ} of the plane Stokes problem in a perforated domain. The limit problem is constructed and estimates for the speed of convergence are obtained. It is shown that the speed of convergence is of order O(ε ^3/2). __________ Translated from Trudy Seminara imeni I. G. Petrovskogo, No. 25, pp. 3–20, 2005.