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.     

On the Galerkin finite element approximations to multi-dimensional differential and integro-differential parabolic equations

The maximum norm error estimates of the Galerkin finite element approximations to the solutions of differential and integro-differential multi-dimensional parabolic problems are considered. Our method is based on the use of the discrete version of the elliptic-Sobolev inequality and some operator representations of the finite element solutions. The results of the present paper lead to the error estimates of optimal or almost optimal order for the case of simplicial Lagrangian piecewise polynomial elements.     

Superconvergent biquadratic finite volume element method for two-dimensional Poisson’s equations

In this paper, a kind of biquadratic finite volume element method is presented for two-dimensional Poisson’s equations by restricting the optimal stress points of biquadratic interpolation as the vertices of control volumes. The method can be effectively implemented by alternating direction technique. It is proved that the method has optimal energy norm error estimates. The superconvergence of numerical gradients at optimal stress points is discussed and it is proved that the method has also superconvergence displacement at nodal points by a modified dual argument technique. Finally, a numerical example verifies the theoretical results and illustrates the effectiveness of the method.     

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     

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     

A dual graph-norm refinement indicator for finite volume approximations of the Euler equations

Summary. We generalise and apply a refinement indicator of the type originally designed by Mackenzie, Süli and Warnecke in [15] and [16] for linear Friedrichs systems to the Euler equations of inviscid, compressible fluid flow. The Euler equations are symmetrized by means of entropy variables and locally linearized about a constant state to obtain a symmetric hyperbolic system to which an a posteriori error analysis of the type introduced in [15] can be applied. We discuss the details of the implementation of the refinement indicator into the DLR--Code which is based on a finite volume method of box type on an unstructured grid and present numerical results. Received May 15, 1995 / Revised version received April 17, 1996     

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.     

Least-squares spectral element method for non-linear hyperbolic differential equations

The least-squares spectral element method has been applied to the one-dimensional inviscid Burgers equation which allows for discontinuous solutions. In order to achieve high order accuracy both in space and in time a space–time formulation has been applied. The Burgers equation has been discretized in three different ways: a non-conservative formulation, a conservative system with two variables and two equations: one first order linear PDE and one linearized algebraic equation, and finally a variant on this conservative formulation applied to a direct minimization with a QR-decomposition at elemental level. For all three formulations an h/p-convergence study has been performed and the results are discussed in this paper.     

Convergence of an upstream finite volume scheme for a nonlinear hyperbolic equation on a triangular mesh

Summary We study here the discretisation of the nonlinear hyperbolic equationu _t +div(vf(u))=0 in ³ × ₊, with given initial conditionu(.,0)=u ₀(.) in ², wherev is a function from ² × ₊ to ² such that divv=0 andf is a given nondecreasing function from to . An explicit Euler scheme is used for the time discretisation of the equation, and a triangular mesh for the spatial discretisation. Under a usual stability condition, we prove the convergence of the solution given by an upstream finite volume scheme towards the unique entropy weak solution to the equation.     

Optimal error estimate and superconvergence of the DG method for first-order hyperbolic problems

We consider the original discontinuous Galerkin method for the first-order hyperbolic problems in d-dimensional space. We show that, when the method uses polynomials of degree k, the L₂-error estimate is of order k+1 provided the triangulation is made of rectangular elements satisfying certain conditions. Further, we show the O(h^2k+1)-order superconvergence for the error on average on some suitably chosen subdomains (including the whole domain) and their outflow faces. Moreover, we also establish a derivative recovery formula for the approximation of the convection directional derivative which is superconvergent with order k+1.     

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).     

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.     

A characteristic finite element method for optimal control problems governed by convection-diffusion equations

In this paper we analyze a characteristic finite element approximation of convex optimal control problems governed by linear convection-dominated diffusion equations with pointwise inequality constraints on the control variable, where the state and co-state variables are discretized by piecewise linear continuous functions and the control variable is approximated by either piecewise constant functions or piecewise linear discontinuous functions. A priori error estimates are derived for the state, co-state and the control. Numerical examples are given to show the efficiency of the characteristic finite element method.     

Error estimate for the upwind finite volume method for the nonlinear scalar conservation law

In this paper we estimate the error of upwind first order finite volume schemes applied to scalar conservation laws. As a first step, we consider standard upwind and flux finite volume scheme discretization of a linear equation with space variable coefficients in conservation form. We prove that, in spite of their lack of consistency, both schemes lead to a first order error estimate. As a final step, we prove a similar estimate for the nonlinear case. Our proofs rely on the notion of geometric corrector, introduced in our previous paper by Bouche et al. (2005) [24] in the context of constant coefficient linear advection equations.     

A posteriori error estimate for finite volume approximations to singularly perturbed nonlinear convection-diffusion equations

Summary. This paper is devoted to the study of a posteriori and a priori error estimates for the scalar nonlinear convection diffusion equation . The estimates for the error between the exact solution and an upwind finite volume approximation to the solution are derived in the -norm in the situation, where the diffusion parameter is smaller or comparable to the mesh size. Numerical experiments underline the theoretical results. Received February 25, 1999 / Revised version received July 6, 1999 / Published online August 2, 2000     

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.     

Two-grid finite volume element method for linear and nonlinear elliptic problems

Two-grid finite volume element discretization techniques, based on two linear conforming finite element spaces on one coarse and one fine grid, are presented for the two-dimensional second-order non-selfadjoint and indefinite linear elliptic problems and the two-dimensional second-order nonlinear elliptic problems. With the proposed techniques, solving the non-selfadjoint and indefinite elliptic problem on the fine space is reduced into solving a symmetric and positive definite elliptic problem on the fine space and solving the non-selfadjoint and indefinite elliptic problem on a much smaller space; solving a nonlinear elliptic problem on the fine space is reduced into solving a linear problem on the fine space and solving the nonlinear elliptic problem on a much smaller space. Convergence estimates are derived to justify the efficiency of the proposed two-grid algorithms. A set of numerical examples are presented to confirm the estimates. The work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No: 10601045).     

Convergence of a finite volume scheme for nonlinear degenerate parabolic equations

Summary. One approximates the entropy weak solution u of a nonlinear parabolic degenerate equation by a piecewise constant function using a discretization in space and time and a finite volume scheme. The convergence of to u is shown as the size of the space and time steps tend to zero. In a first step, estimates on are used to prove the convergence, up to a subsequence, of to a measure valued entropy solution (called here an entropy process solution). A result of uniqueness of the entropy process solution is proved, yielding the strong convergence of to{\it u}. Some on a model equation are shown. Received September 27, 2000 / Published online October 17, 2001     

Some upwinding techniques for finite element approximations of convection-diffusion equations

Summary A uniform framework for the study of upwinding schemes is developed. The standard finite element Galerkin discretization is chosen as the reference discretization, and differences between other discretization schemes and the reference are written as artificial diffusion terms. These artificial diffusion terms are spanned by a four dimensional space of element diffusion matrices. Three basis matrices are symmetric, rank one diffusion operators associated with the edges of the triangle; the fourth basis matrix is skew symmetric and is associated with a rotation by /2. While finite volume discretizations may be written as upwinded Galerkin methods, the converse does not appear to be true. Our approach is used to examine several upwinding schemes, including the streamline diffusion method, the box method, the Scharfetter-Gummel discretization, and a divergence-free scheme.The work of this author was supported by the Office of Naval Research under contract N00014-89J-1440The work of this author was supported through KWF-Landis/Gyr Grant 1496, AT & T Bell Laboratories, and Cray Research