| Abstract: | An adaptive finite element method is developed and applied to study the ozone decomposition laminar flame. The method uses a semidiscrete, linear Galerkin approximation in which the size of the elements is controlled by an integral which minimizes the changes in mesh spacing. The sizes and locations of the elements are controlled by the location and magnitude of the largest temperature gradient. The numerical results obtained with this adaptive finite element method are compared with those obtained using fixed-node finite-difference schemes and an adaptive finite-difference method. It is shown that the adaptive finite element method developed here using 36 elements can yield as accurate flame speeds as fourth-order accurate, fixed-node, finite-difference methods when 272 collocation points are employed in the calculations. |
