Superconvergence

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In numerical analysis, a superconvergent or supraconvergent method is one which converges faster than generally expected (superconvergence or supraconvergence). For example, in the Finite Element Method approximation to Poisson's equation in two dimensions, using piecewise linear elements, the average error in the gradient is first order. However under certain conditions it's possible to recover the gradient at certain locations within each element to second order.

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Finite difference method

In numerical analysis, finite-difference methods (FDM) are a class of numerical techniques for solving differential equations by approximating derivatives with finite differences. Both the spatial domain and time interval are discretized, or broken into a finite number of steps, and the value of the solution at these discrete points is approximated by solving algebraic equations containing finite differences and values from nearby points.

Meshfree methods Methods in numerical analysis not requiring knowledge of neighboring points

In the field of numerical analysis, meshfree methods are those that do not require connection between nodes of the simulation domain, i.e. a mesh, but are rather based on interaction of each node with all its neighbors. As a consequence, original extensive properties such as mass or kinetic energy are no longer assigned to mesh elements but rather to the single nodes. Meshfree methods enable the simulation of some otherwise difficult types of problems, at the cost of extra computing time and programming effort. The absence of a mesh allows Lagrangian simulations, in which the nodes can move according to the velocity field.

In the numerical solution of partial differential equations, a topic in mathematics, the spectral element method (SEM) is a formulation of the finite element method (FEM) that uses high degree piecewise polynomials as basis functions. The spectral element method was introduced in a 1984 paper by A. T. Patera. Although Patera is credited with development of the method, his work was a rediscovery of an existing method

The patch test in the finite element method is a simple indicator of the quality of a finite element, developed by Bruce Irons. The patch test uses a partial differential equation on a domain consisting from several elements set up so that the exact solution is known and can be reproduced, in principle, with zero error. Typically, in mechanics, the prescribed exact solution consists of displacements that vary as piecewise linear functions in space. The elements pass the patch test if the finite element solution is the same as the exact solution.

Philippe G. Ciarlet is a French mathematician, known particularly for his work on mathematical analysis of the finite element method. He has contributed also to elasticity, to the theory of plates and shells and differential geometry.

In numerical analysis, BDDC is a domain decomposition method for solving large symmetric, positive definite systems of linear equations that arise from the finite element method. BDDC is used as a preconditioner to the conjugate gradient method. A specific version of BDDC is characterized by the choice of coarse degrees of freedom, which can be values at the corners of the subdomains, or averages over the edges or the faces of the interface between the subdomains. One application of the BDDC preconditioner then combines the solution of local problems on each subdomains with the solution of a global coarse problem with the coarse degrees of freedom as the unknowns. The local problems on different subdomains are completely independent of each other, so the method is suitable for parallel computing. With a proper choice of the coarse degrees of freedom and with regular subdomain shapes, the condition number of the method is bounded when increasing the number of subdomains, and it grows only very slowly with the number of elements per subdomain. Thus the number of iterations is bounded in the same way, and the method scales well with the problem size and the number of subdomains.

In numerical analysis, mortar methods are discretization methods for partial differential equations, which use separate finite element discretization on nonoverlapping subdomains. The meshes on the subdomains do not match on the interface, and the equality of the solution is enforced by Lagrange multipliers, judiciously chosen to preserve the accuracy of the solution. Mortar discretizations lend themselves naturally to the solution by iterative domain decomposition methods such as FETI and balancing domain decomposition In the engineering practice in the finite element method, continuity of solutions between non-matching subdomains is implemented by multiple-point constraints.

Finite element method Numerical method for solving physical or engineering problems

The finite element method (FEM) is a widely used method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural analysis, heat transfer, fluid flow, mass transport, and electromagnetic potential. The FEM is a general numerical method for solving partial differential equations in two or three space variables. To solve a problem, the FEM subdivides a large system into smaller, simpler parts that are called finite elements. This is achieved by a particular space discretization in the space dimensions, which is implemented by the construction of a mesh of the object: the numerical domain for the solution, which has a finite number of points. The finite element method formulation of a boundary value problem finally results in a system of algebraic equations. The method approximates the unknown function over the domain. The simple equations that model these finite elements are then assembled into a larger system of equations that models the entire problem. The FEM then uses variational methods from the calculus of variations to approximate a solution by minimizing an associated error function.

hp-FEM is a general version of the finite element method (FEM), a numerical method for solving partial differential equations based on piecewise-polynomial approximations that employs elements of variable size (h) and polynomial degree (p). The origins of hp-FEM date back to the pioneering work of Barna A. Szabó and Ivo Babuška who discovered that the finite element method converges exponentially fast when the mesh is refined using a suitable combination of h-refinements (dividing elements into smaller ones) and p-refinements. The exponential convergence makes the method a very attractive choice compared to most other finite element methods which only converge with an algebraic rate. The exponential convergence of the hp-FEM was not only predicted theoretically but also observed by numerous independent researchers.

In the finite element method for the numerical solution of elliptic partial differential equations, the stiffness matrix represents the system of linear equations that must be solved in order to ascertain an approximate solution to the differential equation.

A finite element limit analysis (FELA) uses optimisation techniques to directly compute the upper or lower bound plastic collapse load for a mechanical system rather than time stepping to a collapse load, as might be undertaken with conventional non-linear finite element techniques. The problem may be formulated in either a kinematic or equilibrium form.

Burton Wendroff is an American applied mathematician known for his contributions to the development of numerical methods for the solution of hyperbolic partial differential equations. The Lax–Wendroff method for the solution of hyperbolic PDE is named for Wendroff.

Andrei Knyazev (mathematician) Russian American mathematician

Andrei (Andrew) Knyazev is a Russian-American mathematician. He graduated from the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of Moscow State University under the supervision of Evgenii Georgievich D'yakonov in 1981 and obtained his PhD in Numerical Mathematics at the Russian Academy of Sciences under the supervision of Vyacheslav Ivanovich Lebedev in 1985. He worked at the Kurchatov Institute between 1981–1983, and then to 1992 at the Marchuk Institute of Numerical Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, headed by Gury Marchuk.

Chebfun is a free/open-source software system written in MATLAB for numerical computation with functions of a real variable. It is based on the idea of overloading MATLAB's commands for vectors and matrices to analogous commands for functions and operators. Thus, for example, whereas the SUM command in MATLAB adds up the elements of a vector, the SUM command in Chebfun evaluates a definite integral. Similarly the backslash command in MATLAB becomes a Chebfun command for solving differential equations.

Smoothed finite element methods (S-FEM) are a particular class of numerical simulation algorithms for the simulation of physical phenomena. It was developed by combining meshfree methods with the finite element method. S-FEM are applicable to solid mechanics as well as fluid dynamics problems, although so far they have mainly been applied to the former.

In numerical mathematics, hierarchical matrices (H-matrices) are used as data-sparse approximations of non-sparse matrices. While a sparse matrix of dimension can be represented efficiently in units of storage by storing only its non-zero entries, a non-sparse matrix would require units of storage, and using this type of matrices for large problems would therefore be prohibitively expensive in terms of storage and computing time. Hierarchical matrices provide an approximation requiring only units of storage, where is a parameter controlling the accuracy of the approximation. In typical applications, e.g., when discretizing integral equations , preconditioning the resulting systems of linear equations , or solving elliptic partial differential equations , a rank proportional to with a small constant is sufficient to ensure an accuracy of . Compared to many other data-sparse representations of non-sparse matrices, hierarchical matrices offer a major advantage: the results of matrix arithmetic operations like matrix multiplication, factorization or inversion can be approximated in operations, where

Susanne Cecelia Brenner is an American mathematician, whose research concerns the finite element method and related techniques for the numerical solution of differential equations. She is a Boyd Professor at Louisiana State University. Previously, she held the Nicholson Professorship of Mathematics and the Michael F. and Roberta Nesbit McDonald Professorship at Louisiana State University, She currently chairs the editorial committee of the journal Mathematics of Computation. During 2021-2022 she is serving as President of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).

Gradient discretisation method

In numerical mathematics, the gradient discretisation method (GDM) is a framework which contains classical and recent numerical schemes for diffusion problems of various kinds: linear or non-linear, steady-state or time-dependent. The schemes may be conforming or non-conforming, and may rely on very general polygonal or polyhedral meshes.

Christoph Schwab is a German applied mathematician, specializing in numerical analysis of partial differential equations and boundary integral equations.

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