A two‐grid characteristic finite volume element method for semilinear advection‐dominated diffusion equations

A two‐grid finite volume element method, combined with the modified method of characteristics, is presented and analyzed for semilinear time‐dependent advection‐dominated diffusion equations in two space dimensions. The solution of a nonlinear system on the fine‐grid space (with grid size h) is reduced to the solution of two small (one linear and one nonlinear) systems on the coarse‐grid space (with grid size H) and a linear system on the fine‐grid space. An optimal error estimate in H¹ ‐norm is obtained for the two‐grid method. It shows that the two‐grid method achieves asymptotically optimal approximation, as long as the mesh sizes satisfy h = O(H²). Numerical example is presented to validate the usefulness and efficiency of the method. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2013