A finite volume method on general surfaces and its error estimates

In this paper, we study a finite volume method and its error estimates for the numerical solution of some model second order elliptic partial differential equations defined on a smooth surface. The discretization is defined via a surface mesh consisting of piecewise planar triangles and piecewise polygons. The optimal error estimates of the approximate solution are proved in both the H¹ and L² norms which are of first order and second order respectively under mesh regularity assumptions. Some numerical tests are also carried out to experimentally verify our theoretical analysis.     

Two-level pressure projection finite element methods for Navier-Stokes equations with nonlinear slip boundary conditions

The two-level pressure projection stabilized finite element methods for Navier-Stokes equations with nonlinear slip boundary conditions are investigated in this paper, whose variational formulation is the Navier-Stokes type variational inequality problem of the second kind. Based on the P₁-P₁ triangular element and using the pressure projection stabilized finite element method, we solve a small Navier-Stokes type variational inequality problem on the coarse mesh with mesh size H and solve a large Stokes type variational inequality problem for simple iteration or a large Oseen type variational inequality problem for Oseen iteration on the fine mesh with mesh size h. The error analysis obtained in this paper shows that if h=O(H²), the two-level stabilized methods have the same convergence orders as the usual one-level stabilized finite element methods, which is only solving a large Navier-Stokes type variational inequality problem on the fine mesh. Finally, numerical results are given to verify the theoretical analysis.     

Four-triangles adaptive algorithms for RTIN terrain meshes

We present a refinement and coarsening algorithm for the adaptive representation of Right-Triangulated Irregular Network (RTIN) meshes. The refinement algorithm is very simple and proceeds uniformly or locally in triangle meshes. The coarsening algorithm decreases mesh complexity by reducing unnecessary data points in the mesh after a given error criterion is applied. We describe the most important features of the algorithms and give a brief numerical study on the propagation associated with the adaptive scheme used for the refinement algorithm. We also present a comparison with a commercial tool for mesh simplification, Rational Reducer, showing that our coarsening algorithm offers better results in terms of accuracy of the generated meshes.     

A priori error estimates for finite element methods with numerical quadrature for nonmonotone nonlinear elliptic problems

The effect of numerical quadrature in finite element methods for solving quasilinear elliptic problems of nonmonotone type is studied. Under similar assumption on the quadrature formula as for linear problems, optimal error estimates in the L ² and the H ¹ norms are proved. The numerical solution obtained from the finite element method with quadrature formula is shown to be unique for a sufficiently fine mesh. The analysis is valid for both simplicial and rectangular finite elements of arbitrary order. Numerical experiments corroborate the theoretical convergence rates.     

L 2 error estimates and superconvergence of the finite volume element methods on quadrilateral meshes

This paper is concerned with the finite volume element methods on quadrilateral mesh for second-order elliptic equation with variable coefficients. An error estimate in L ² norm is shown on the quadrilateral meshes consisting of h ²-parallelograms. Superconvergence of numerical solution is also derived in an average gradient norm on h ²-uniform quadrilateral meshes. Numerical examples confirm our theoretical conclusions.     

Construction and study of high-order accurate schemes for solving the one-dimensional heat equation

The method of undetermined coefficients on multipoint stencils with two time levels was used to construct compact difference schemes of O(τ³, h ⁶) accuracy intended for solving boundary value problems for the one-dimensional heat equation. The schemes were examined for von Neumann stability, and numerical experiments were conducted on a sequence of grids with mesh sizes tending to zero. One of the schemes was proved to be absolutely stable. It was shown that, for smooth solutions, the high order of convergence of the numerical solution agrees with the order of accuracy; moreover, solutions accurate up to ～10^?12 are obtained on grids with spatial mesh sizes of ～10^?2. The formulas for the schemes are rather simple and easy to implement on a computer.     

Optimal l~∞ error estimates of finite difference methods for the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations in high dimensions

Due to the difficulty in obtaining the a priori estimate,it is very hard to establish the optimal point-wise error bound of a finite difference scheme for solving a nonlinear partial differential equation in high dimensions(2D or 3D).We here propose and analyze finite difference methods for solving the coupled GrossPitaevskii equations in two dimensions,which models the two-component Bose-Einstein condensates with an internal atomic Josephson junction.The methods which we considered include two conservative type schemes and two non-conservative type schemes.Discrete conservation laws and solvability of the schemes are analyzed.For the four proposed finite difference methods,we establish the optimal convergence rates for the error at the order of O(h~2+τ~2)in the l~∞-norm(i.e.,the point-wise error estimates)with the time stepτand the mesh size h.Besides the standard techniques of the energy method,the key techniques in the analysis is to use the cut-off function technique,transformation between the time and space direction and the method of order reduction.All the methods and results here are also valid and can be easily extended to the three-dimensional case.Finally,numerical results are reported to confirm our theoretical error estimates for the numerical methods.     

A second order scheme for a time-dependent,singularly perturbed convection–diffusion equation

We consider a numerical scheme for a one-dimensional, time-dependent, singularly perturbed convection–diffusion problem. The problem is discretized in space by a standard finite element method on a Bakhvalov–Shishkin type mesh. The space error is measured in an L² norm. For the time integration, the implicit midpoint rule is used. The fully discrete scheme is shown to be convergent of order 2 in space and time, uniformly in the singular perturbation parameter.     

A parameter-uniform numerical method for time-dependent singularly perturbed differential-difference equations

A numerical study is made for solving a class of time-dependent singularly perturbed convection–diffusion problems with retarded terms which often arise in computational neuroscience. To approximate the retarded terms, a Taylor’s series expansion has been used and the resulting time-dependent singularly perturbed differential equation is approximated using parameter-uniform numerical methods comprised of a standard implicit finite difference scheme to discretize in the temporal direction on a uniform mesh by means of Rothe’s method and a B-spline collocation method in the spatial direction on a piecewise-uniform mesh of Shishkin type. The method is shown to be accurate of order O(M⁻¹ + N⁻² ln³N), where M and N are the number of mesh points used in the temporal direction and in the spatial direction respectively. An extensive amount of analysis has been carried out to prove the uniform convergence with respect to the singular perturbation parameter. Numerical results are given to illustrate the parameter-uniform convergence of the numerical approximations. Comparisons of the numerical solutions are performed with an upwind and midpoint upwind finite difference scheme on a piecewise-uniform mesh to demonstrate the efficiency of the method.     

Three-dimensional data transfer operators in large plasticity deformations using modified-SPR technique

In this paper, the data transfer operators are developed in 3D large plasticity deformations using superconvergent patch recovery (SPR) method. The history-dependent nature of plasticity problems necessitates the transfer of all relevant variables from the old mesh to new one, which is performed in three main stages. In the first step, the history-dependent internal variables are transferred from the Gauss points of old mesh to nodal points. The variables are then transferred from nodal points of old mesh to nodal points of new mesh. Finally, the values are computed at the Gauss points of new mesh using their values at nodal points. As the solution procedure, in general, cannot be re-computed from the initial configuration, it is continued from the previously computed state. In particular, the transfer operators are defined for mapping of the state and internal variables between different meshes. Aspects of the transfer operators are presented by fitting the best polynomial function with the C₀, C₁ and C₂ continuity in 3D superconvergent patch recovery technique. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed model and computational algorithms is demonstrated through numerical examples.     

A non-uniform basis order for the discontinuous Galerkin method of the acoustic and elastic wave equations

Here, we solve the time-dependent acoustic and elastic wave equations using the discontinuous Galerkin method for spatial discretization and the low-storage Runge-Kutta and Crank-Nicolson methods for time integration. The aim of the present paper is to study how to choose the order of polynomial basis functions for each element in the computational mesh to obtain a predetermined relative error. In this work, the formula 2p+1≈κhk, which connects the polynomial basis order p, mesh parameter h, wave number k, and free parameter κ, is studied. The aim is to obtain a simple selection method for the order of the basis functions so that a relatively constant error level of the solution can be achieved. The method is examined using numerical experiments. The results of the experiments indicate that this method is a promising approach for approximating the degree of the basis functions for an arbitrarily sized element. However, in certain model problems we show the failure of the proposed selection scheme. In such a case, the method provides an initial basis for a more general p-adaptive discontinuous Galerkin method.     

A Lagrange multiplier/fictitious domain method for the numerical simulation of incompressible viscous flow around moving rigid bodies: (I) case where the rigid body motions are known a priori

We describe in this Note a method for the numerical simulation of incompressible viscous flow around moving rigid bodies; we suppose the rigid body motions a priori known. The computational technique takes advantage of a time discretization by operator splitting à la Marchuk-Yanenko and of a finite element space discretization on a fixed mesh, to combine a Lagrange multiplier/fictitious domain treatment of the rigid body motions with an L²-projection technique, to force the incompressibility condition. The results of numerical experiments concerning flow around moving disks at Reynolds number of the order of 100 are presented.     

Error estimates for a finite element-finite volume discretization of convection-diffusion equations

We consider a time-dependent linear convection-diffusion equation. This equation is approximated by a combined finite element-finite volume method: the diffusion term is discretized by Crouzeix-Raviart piecewise linear finite elements, and the convection term by upwind barycentric finite volumes on a triangular grid. An implicit Euler approach is used for time discretization. It is shown that the error associated with this scheme, measured by a discrete L^∞-L²- and L²-H¹-norm, respectively, decays linearly with the mesh size and the time step. This result holds without any link between mesh size and time step. The dependence of the corresponding error bound on the diffusion coefficient is completely explicit.     

Numerical and experimental simulation of wave formation during explosion welding

The results of numerical and experimental simulation of wave formation under an oblique impact of metal plates during explosion welding are presented. The numerical simulation was carried out on the basis of the Maxwell relaxation model and by a molecular dynamics method. In the experiments, the impact of metal plates was investigated with X-ray radiography of phenomena in front of and behind the point of contact, and the preserved samples were studied metallographically. It is shown that the numerical simulation correctly reproduces the formation and evolution of waves on the contact boundary. Simultaneously, constraints are pointed out that prohibit the use of the elastoplastic model in the impact zone of the plates starting from the moment when the material of the plate in this zone is decomposed into thin jets. In this zone, the dependence of the specific deformation energy E on the tensor C _j ⁱ is no longer described by a convex function. It is this fact that motivated the transition to the molecular dynamics model.     

Adaptive simplification of huge sets of terrain grid data for geosciences applications

We propose and discuss a new Lepp-surface method able to produce a small triangular approximation of huge sets of terrain grid data by using a two-goal strategy that assures both small approximation error and well-shaped 3D triangles. This is a refinement method which starts with a coarse initial triangulation of the input data, and incrementally selects and adds data points into the mesh as follows: for the edge e having the highest error in the mesh, one or two points close to (one or two) terminal edges associated with e are inserted in the mesh. The edge error is computed by adding the triangle approximation errors of the two triangles that share e, while each L₂-norm triangle error is computed by using a curvature tensor (a good approximation of the surface) at a representative point associated with both triangles. The method produces triangular approximations that capture well the relevant features of the terrain surface by naturally producing well-shaped triangles. We compare our method with a pure L₂-norm optimization method.     

Two‐level discretization of the Navier‐Stokes equations with r‐Laplacian subgridscale viscosity

The r‐Laplacian has played an important role in the development of computationally efficient models for applications, such as numerical simulation of turbulent flows. In this article, we examine two‐level finite element approximation schemes applied to the Navier‐Stokes equations with r‐Laplacian subgridscale viscosity, where r is the order of the power‐law artificial viscosity term. In the two‐level algorithm, the solution to the fully nonlinear coarse mesh problem is utilized in a single‐step linear fine mesh problem. When modeling parameters are chosen appropriately, the error in the two‐level algorithm is comparable to the error in solving the fully nonlinear problem on the fine mesh. We provide rigorous numerical analysis of the two‐level approximation scheme and derive scalings which vary based on the coefficient r, coarse mesh size H, fine mesh size h, and filter radius δ. We also investigate the two‐level algorithm in several computational settings, including the 3D numerical simulation of flow past a backward‐facing step at Reynolds number Re = 5100. In all numerical tests, the two‐level algorithm was proven to achieve the same order of accuracy as the standard one‐level algorithm, at a fraction of the computational cost. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2011     

An error estimate for a finite volume scheme for a diffusion–convection problem on a triangular mesh

We study here a finite volume scheme for a diffusion-convection equation on an open bounded set Ω of ?², using a triangular mesh for the discretization of Ω. The 4-point numerical scheme is presented along with the geometrical assumptions on the mesh. An error estimate of order h on the discrete L² norm is obtained, where h denotes the “size” of the mesh. The proof uses an estimate of order h of the consistency error on the fluxes and an estimate of the number of edges of the mesh between one given triangle and the boundary Ω. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Spectral element methods on unstructured meshes: which interpolation points?

In the field of spectral element approximations, the interpolation points can be chosen on the basis of different criteria, going from the minimization of the Lebesgue constant to the simplicity of the point generation procedure. In the present paper, we summarize some recent nodal distributions for a high order interpolation in the triangle. We then adopt these points as approximation points for the numerical solution of an elliptic partial differential equation on an unstructured simplicial mesh. The L ²-norm of the approximation error is then analyzed for a model problem.     

On the Complexity of Self-Validating Numerical Integration and Approximation of Functions with Singularities

We consider the complexity of numerical integration and piecewise polynomial at approximation of bounded functions from a subclass ofC^k([a, b]\Z), whereZis a finite subset of [a, b]. Using only function values or values of derivatives, we usually cannot guarantee that the costs for obtaining an error less thanεare bounded byO(ε^−1/k) and we may have much higher costs. The situation changes if we also allow “realistic” estimates of ranges of functions or derivatives on intervals as observations. A very simple algorithm now yields an error less thanεwithO(ε^−1/k)-costs and an analogous result is also obtained for uniform approximation with piecewise polynomials. In a practical implementation, estimation of ranges may be done efficiently with interval arithmetic and automatic differentiation. The cost for each such evaluation (also of ranges of derivatives) is bounded by a constant times the cost for a function evaluation. The mentioned techniques reduce the class of integrands, but still allow numerical integration of functions from a wide class withO(ε^−1/k) arithmetical operations and guaranteed precisionε.     

Error estimates of numerical methods for the nonlinear Dirac equation in the nonrelativistic limit regime

We present several numerical methods and establish their error estimates for the discretization of the nonlinear Dirac equation(NLDE) in the nonrelativistic limit regime, involving a small dimensionless parameter 0 ε≤ 1 which is inversely proportional to the speed of light. In this limit regime, the solution is highly oscillatory in time, i.e., there are propagating waves with wavelength O(ε~2) and O(1) in time and space,respectively. We begin with the conservative Crank-Nicolson finite difference(CNFD) method and establish rigorously its error estimate which depends explicitly on the mesh size h and time step τ as well as the small parameter 0 ε≤ 1. Based on the error bound, in order to obtain ‘correct' numerical solutions in the nonrelativistic limit regime, i.e., 0 ε■ 1, the CNFD method requests the ε-scalability: τ = O(ε~3) and h= O(ε~(1/2)). Then we propose and analyze two numerical methods for the discretization of NLDE by using the Fourier spectral discretization for spatial derivatives combined with the exponential wave integrator and timesplitting technique for temporal derivatives, respectively. Rigorous error bounds for the two numerical methods show that their ε-scalability is improved to τ = O(ε~2) and h = O(1) when 0 ε■1. Extensive numerical results are reported to confirm our error estimates.