2,634 research outputs found
Error analysis of a space-time finite element method for solving PDEs on evolving surfaces
In this paper we present an error analysis of an Eulerian finite element
method for solving parabolic partial differential equations posed on evolving
hypersurfaces in , . The method employs discontinuous
piecewise linear in time -- continuous piecewise linear in space finite
elements and is based on a space-time weak formulation of a surface PDE
problem. Trial and test surface finite element spaces consist of traces of
standard volumetric elements on a space-time manifold resulting from the
evolution of a surface. We prove first order convergence in space and time of
the method in an energy norm and second order convergence in a weaker norm.
Furthermore, we derive regularity results for solutions of parabolic PDEs on an
evolving surface, which we need in a duality argument used in the proof of the
second order convergence estimate
Trace Finite Element Methods for PDEs on Surfaces
In this paper we consider a class of unfitted finite element methods for
discretization of partial differential equations on surfaces. In this class of
methods known as the Trace Finite Element Method (TraceFEM), restrictions or
traces of background surface-independent finite element functions are used to
approximate the solution of a PDE on a surface. We treat equations on steady
and time-dependent (evolving) surfaces. Higher order TraceFEM is explained in
detail. We review the error analysis and algebraic properties of the method.
The paper navigates through the known variants of the TraceFEM and the
literature on the subject
A least-squares implicit RBF-FD closest point method and applications to PDEs on moving surfaces
The closest point method (Ruuth and Merriman, J. Comput. Phys.
227(3):1943-1961, [2008]) is an embedding method developed to solve a variety
of partial differential equations (PDEs) on smooth surfaces, using a closest
point representation of the surface and standard Cartesian grid methods in the
embedding space. Recently, a closest point method with explicit time-stepping
was proposed that uses finite differences derived from radial basis functions
(RBF-FD). Here, we propose a least-squares implicit formulation of the closest
point method to impose the constant-along-normal extension of the solution on
the surface into the embedding space. Our proposed method is particularly
flexible with respect to the choice of the computational grid in the embedding
space. In particular, we may compute over a computational tube that contains
problematic nodes. This fact enables us to combine the proposed method with the
grid based particle method (Leung and Zhao, J. Comput. Phys. 228(8):2993-3024,
[2009]) to obtain a numerical method for approximating PDEs on moving surfaces.
We present a number of examples to illustrate the numerical convergence
properties of our proposed method. Experiments for advection-diffusion
equations and Cahn-Hilliard equations that are strongly coupled to the velocity
of the surface are also presented
Finite element methods for surface PDEs
In this article we consider finite element methods for approximating the solution of partial differential equations on surfaces. We focus on surface finite elements on triangulated surfaces, implicit surface methods using level set descriptions of the surface, unfitted finite element methods and diffuse interface methods. In order to formulate the methods we present the necessary geometric analysis and, in the context of evolving surfaces, the necessary transport formulae. A wide variety of equations and applications are covered. Some ideas of the numerical analysis are presented along with illustrative numerical examples
A finite element approach for vector- and tensor-valued surface PDEs
We derive a Cartesian componentwise description of the covariant derivative
of tangential tensor fields of any degree on general manifolds. This allows to
reformulate any vector- and tensor-valued surface PDE in a form suitable to be
solved by established tools for scalar-valued surface PDEs. We consider
piecewise linear Lagrange surface finite elements on triangulated surfaces and
validate the approach by a vector- and a tensor-valued surface Helmholtz
problem on an ellipsoid. We experimentally show optimal (linear) order of
convergence for these problems. The full functionality is demonstrated by
solving a surface Landau-de Gennes problem on the Stanford bunny. All tools
required to apply this approach to other vector- and tensor-valued surface PDEs
are provided
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