A multi-domain implementation of the pseudo-spectral method and compact finite difference schemes for solving time-dependent differential equations

Abstract

Abstract : In this dissertation, we introduce new numerical methods for solving time-dependant differential equations. These methods involve dividing the domain of the problem into multiple sub domains. The nonlinearity of the differential equations is dealt with by using a Gauss-Seidel like relaxation or quasilinearisation technique. To solve the linearized iteration schemes obtained we use either higher order compact finite difference schemes or spectral collocation methods and we call the resulting methods the multi-domain compact finite difference relaxation method (MD-CFDRM), multi-domain compact finite difference quasilinearisation method (MD-CFDQLM) and multi-domain bivariate spectral quasilinearisation method (MD-BSQLM) respectively. We test the applicability of these methods in a wide variety of differential equations. The accuracy is compared against other methods as well as other results from literature. The MD-CFDRM is used to solve famous chaotic systems and hyperchaotic systems. Chaotic and hyperchaotic systems are characterized by high sensitivity to small perturbation on initial data and rapidly changing solutions. Such rapid variations in the solution pose tremendous problems to a number of numerical approximations. We modify the CFDs to be able to deal with such systems of equations. We also used the MD-CFDQLM to solve the nonlinear evolution partial differential equations, namely, the Fisher’s equation, Burgers- Fisher equation, Burgers-Huxley equation and the coupled Burgers’ equations over a large time domain. The main advantage of this approach is that it offers better accuracy on coarser grids which significantly improves the computational speed of the method for large time domain. We also studied the generalized Kuramoto-Sivashinsky (GKS) equations. The KS equations exhibit chaotic behaviour under certain conditions. We used the multi-domain bivariate spectral quasilinearisation method (MD-BSQLM) to approximate the numerical solutions for the generalized KS equations.M.Sc. (Pure and Applied Mathematics