Closed form numerical solutions of variable coefficient linear second-order elliptic problems

In this work we develop an alternative numerical technique which allows to construct a numerical solution in closed form of variable coefficient linear second-order elliptic problems with Dirichlet boundary conditions. The elliptic partial differential equation is approximated by a consistent explicit difference scheme and using a discrete separation of the variables method we determine a closed form solution of the two resulting discrete boundary value problems with the separated variables, avoiding to have to solve large algebraic systems. One of these boundary value problems is a discrete Sturm Liouville problem which guarantees the qualitative properties of the exact solution of elliptic problem. A constructive procedure for the computation of the numerical solution is given and an illustrative example is included.Casabán Bartual, MC.; Company Rossi, R.; Jódar Sánchez, LA. (2014). Closed form numerical solutions of variable coefficient linear second-order elliptic problems. Applied Mathematics and Computation. 238:266-280. doi:10.1016/j.amc.2014.04.025S26628023

The finite element method in low speed aerodynamics

The finite element procedure is shown to be of significant impact in design of the 'computational wind tunnel' for low speed aerodynamics. The uniformity of the mathematical differential equation description, for viscous and/or inviscid, multi-dimensional subsonic flows about practical aerodynamic system configurations, is utilized to establish the general form of the finite element algorithm. Numerical results for inviscid flow analysis, as well as viscous boundary layer, parabolic, and full Navier Stokes flow descriptions verify the capabilities and overall versatility of the fundamental algorithm for aerodynamics. The proven mathematical basis, coupled with the distinct user-orientation features of the computer program embodiment, indicate near-term evolution of a highly useful analytical design tool to support computational configuration studies in low speed aerodynamics

Numerical methods for multiscale inverse problems

We consider the inverse problem of determining the highly oscillatory coefficient $a^\epsilon$ in partial differential equations of the form $-\nabla\cdot (a^\epsilon\nabla u^\epsilon)+bu^\epsilon = f$ from given measurements of the solutions. Here, $\epsilon$ indicates the smallest characteristic wavelength in the problem ($0<\epsilon\ll1$). In addition to the general difficulty of finding an inverse, the oscillatory nature of the forward problem creates an additional challenge of multiscale modeling, which is hard even for forward computations. The inverse problem in its full generality is typically ill-posed and one common approach is to replace the original problem with an effective parameter estimation problem. We will here include microscale features directly in the inverse problem and avoid ill-posedness by assuming that the microscale can be accurately represented by a low-dimensional parametrization. The basis for our inversion will be a coupling of the parametrization to analytic homogenization or a coupling to efficient multiscale numerical methods when analytic homogenization is not available. We will analyze the reduced problem, $b = 0$, by proving uniqueness of the inverse in certain problem classes and by numerical examples and also include numerical model examples for medical imaging, $b > 0$, and exploration seismology, $b < 0$

Accurate gradient computations at interfaces using finite element methods

New finite element methods are proposed for elliptic interface problems in one and two dimensions. The main motivation is not only to get an accurate solution but also an accurate first order derivative at the interface (from each side). The key in 1D is to use the idea from \cite{wheeler1974galerkin}. For 2D interface problems, the idea is to introduce a small tube near the interface and introduce the gradient as part of unknowns, which is similar to a mixed finite element method, except only at the interface. Thus the computational cost is just slightly higher than the standard finite element method. We present rigorous one dimensional analysis, which show second order convergence order for both of the solution and the gradient in 1D. For two dimensional problems, we present numerical results and observe second order convergence for the solution, and super-convergence for the gradient at the interface