Solving nonlinear ODE and PDE problems

Hans Petter Langtangen1,2

1
Center for Biomedical Computing, Simula Research Laboratory
2
Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

2016

Note: Preliminary version (expect typos).

Contents
1 Introduction of basic concepts 4
1.1 Linear versus nonlinear equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 A simple model problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Linearization by explicit time discretization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Exact solution of nonlinear algebraic equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5 Linearization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.6 Picard iteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.7 Linearization by a geometric mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.8 Newton’s method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.9 Relaxation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.10 Implementation and experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.11 Generalization to a general nonlinear ODE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.12 Systems of ODEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2 Systems of nonlinear algebraic equations 18

2.1 Picard iteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2 Newton’s method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.3 Stopping criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.4 Example: A nonlinear ODE model from epidemiology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3 Linearization at the differential equation level 23

3.1 Explicit time integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2 Backward Euler scheme and Picard iteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.3 Backward Euler scheme and Newton’s method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.4 Crank-Nicolson discretization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

4 Discretization of 1D stationary nonlinear differential equations 28

4.1 Finite difference discretization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.2 Solution of algebraic equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.3 Galerkin-type discretization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.4 Picard iteration defined from the variational form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.5 Newton’s method defined from the variational form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5 Multi-dimensional PDE problems 36
5.1 Finite element discretization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.2 Finite difference discretization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.3 Continuation methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

6 Exercises 41

References 49

A Symbolic nonlinear finite element equations 50

A.1 Finite element basis functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
A.2 The group finite element method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
A.3 Numerical integration of nonlinear terms by hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
A.4 Finite element discretization of a variable coefficient Laplace term . . . . . . . . 53

Index 57

2
List of Exercises and Problems
Problem 1 Determine if equations are nonlinear or not p. 41
Exercise 2 Derive and investigate a generalized logistic ... p. 42
Problem 3 Experience the behavior of Newton’s method p. 42
Problem 4 Compute the Jacobian of a 2 × 2 system p. 43
Problem 5 Solve nonlinear equations arising from a vibration ... p. 43
Exercise 6 Find the truncation error of arithmetic mean ... p. 43
Problem 7 Newton’s method for linear problems p. 44
Exercise 8 Discretize a 1D problem with a nonlinear coefficient ... p. 44
Exercise 9 Linearize a 1D problem with a nonlinear coefficient ... p. 44
Problem 10 Finite differences for the 1D Bratu problem p. 45
Problem 11 Integrate functions of finite element expansions ... p. 45
Problem 12 Finite elements for the 1D Bratu problem p. 46
Exercise 13 Discretize a nonlinear 1D heat conduction ... p. 47
Exercise 14 Use different symbols for different approximations ... p. 47
Exercise 15 Derive Picard and Newton systems from a variational ... p. 48
Exercise 16 Derive algebraic equations for nonlinear 1D ... p. 48
Exercise 17 Differentiate a highly nonlinear term p. 48
Exercise 18 Crank-Nicolson for a nonlinear 3D diffusion ... p. 48
Exercise 19 Find the sparsity of the Jacobian p. 49
Problem 20 Investigate a 1D problem with a continuation ... p. 49

3
1 Introduction of basic concepts
1.1 Linear versus nonlinear equations
Algebraic equations. A linear, scalar, algebraic equation in x has the form

ax + b = 0,
for arbitrary real constants a and b. The unknown is a number x. All other algebraic equations,
e.g., x2 + ax + b = 0, are nonlinear. The typical feature in a nonlinear algebraic equation is that
the unknown appears in products with itself, like x2 or ex = 1 + x + 12 x2 + 3!1 3
x + ···.
We know how to solve a linear algebraic equation, x = −b/a, but there are no general methods
for finding the exact solutions of nonlinear algebraic equations, except for very special cases
(quadratic equations are a primary example). A nonlinear algebraic equation may have no solution,
one solution, or many solutions. The tools for solving nonlinear algebraic equations are iterative
methods, where we construct a series of linear equations, which we know how to solve, and hope
that the solutions of the linear equations converge to the solution of the nonlinear equation we
want to solve. Typical methods for nonlinear algebraic equations are Newton’s method, the
Bisection method, and the Secant method.

Differential equations. The unknown in a differential equation is a function and not a number.
In a linear differential equation, all terms involving the unknown functions are linear in the
unknown functions or their derivatives. Linear here means that the unknown function, or a
derivative of it, is multiplied by a number or a known function. All other differential equations
are non-linear.
The easiest way to see if an equation is nonlinear, is to spot nonlinear terms where the
unknown functions or their derivatives are multiplied by each other. For example, in

u0 (t) = −a(t)u(t) + b(t),

the terms involving the unknown function u are linear: u0 contains the derivative of the unknown
function multiplied by unity, and au contains the unknown function multiplied by a known
function. However,
u0 (t) = u(t)(1 − u(t)),
is nonlinear because of the term −u2 where the unknown function is multiplied by itself. Also
∂u ∂u
+u = 0,
∂t ∂x
is nonlinear because of the term uux where the unknown function appears in a product with itself
or one if its derivatives. (Note here that we use different notations for derivatives: u0 or du/dt for
a function u(t) of one variable, ∂u∂t or ut for a function of more than one variable.)
Another example of a nonlinear equation is

u00 + sin(u) = 0,
because sin(u) contains products of u if we expand the function in a Taylor series:
1
sin(u) = u − u3 + . . .
3

4
 Mathematical proof of linearity.
To really prove mathematically that some differential equation in an unknown u is linear,
show for each term T (u) that with u = au1 + bu2 for constants a and b,

T (au1 + bu2 ) = aT (u1 ) + bT (u2 ) .

For example, the term T (u) = (sin2 t)u0 (t) is linear because

T (au1 + bu2 ) = (sin2 t)(au1 (t) + bu2 (t))

= a(sin2 t)u1 (t) + b(sin2 t)u2 (t)
= aT (u1 ) + bT (u2 ) .

However, T (u) = sin u is nonlinear because

T (au1 + bu2 ) = sin(au1 + bu2 ) 6= a sin u1 + b sin u2 .

1.2 A simple model problem

A series of forthcoming examples will explain how to tackle nonlinear differential equations with
various techniques. We start with the (scaled) logistic equation as model problem:

u0 (t) = u(t)(1 − u(t)) . (1)

This is a nonlinear ordinary differential equation (ODE) which will be solved by different strategies
in the following. Depending on the chosen time discretization of (1), the mathematical problem
to be solved at every time level will either be a linear algebraic equation or a nonlinear algebraic
equation. In the former case, the time discretization method transforms the nonlinear ODE
into linear subproblems at each time level, and the solution is straightforward to find since
linear algebraic equations are easy to solve. However, when the time discretization leads to
nonlinear algebraic equations, we cannot (except in very rare cases) solve these without turning
to approximate, iterative solution methods.
The next subsections introduce various methods for solving nonlinear differential equations,
using (1) as model. We shall go through the following set cases:
• explicit time discretization methods (with no need to solve nonlinear algebraic equations)
• implicit Backward Euler discretization, leading to nonlinear algebraic equations solved by
– an exact analytical technique
– Picard iteration based on manual linearization
– a single Picard step
– Newton’s method

• implicit Crank-Nicolson discretization and linearization via a geometric mean formula

Thereafter, we compare the performance of the various approaches. Despite the simplicity of
(1), the conclusions reveal typical features of the various methods in much more complicated
nonlinear PDE problems.

5
1.3 Linearization by explicit time discretization
Time discretization methods are divided into explicit and implicit methods. Explicit methods
lead to a closed-form formula for finding new values of the unknowns, while implicit methods
give a linear or nonlinear system of equations that couples (all) the unknowns at a new time
level. Here we shall demonstrate that explicit methods constitute an efficient way to deal with
nonlinear differential equations.
The Forward Euler method is an explicit method. When applied to (1), sampled at t = tn , it
results in

un+1 − un
= un (1 − un ),
∆t
which is a linear algebraic equation for the unknown value un+1 that we can easily solve:

un+1 = un + ∆t un (1 − un ) .
The nonlinearity in the original equation poses in this case no difficulty in the discrete algebraic
equation. Any other explicit scheme in time will also give only linear algebraic equations to solve.
For example, a typical 2nd-order Runge-Kutta method for (1) leads to the following formulas:

u∗ = un + ∆tun (1 − un ),
1
un+1 = un + ∆t (un (1 − un ) + u∗ (1 − u∗ ))) .
2
The first step is linear in the unknown u∗ . Then u∗ is known in the next step, which is linear in
the unknown un+1 .

1.4 Exact solution of nonlinear algebraic equations

Switching to a Backward Euler scheme for (1),

un − un−1
= un (1 − un ), (2)
∆t
results in a nonlinear algebraic equation for the unknown value un . The equation is of quadratic
type:

∆t(un )2 + (1 − ∆t)un − un−1 = 0,

and may be solved exactly by the well-known formula for such equations. Before we do so,
however, we will introduce a shorter, and often cleaner, notation for nonlinear algebraic equations
at a given time level. The notation is inspired by the natural notation (i.e., variable names) used
in a program, especially in more advanced partial differential equation problems. The unknown
in the algebraic equation is denoted by u, while u(1) is the value of the unknown at the previous
time level (in general, u(`) is the value of the unknown ` levels back in time). The notation will
be frequently used in later sections. What is meant by u should be evident from the context: u
may be 1) the exact solution of the ODE/PDE problem, 2) the numerical approximation to the
exact solution, or 3) the unknown solution at a certain time level.
The quadratic equation for the unknown un in (2) can, with the new notation, be written

F (u) = ∆tu2 + (1 − ∆t)u − u(1) = 0 . (3)

6
The solution is readily found to be
 
1
q
u= −1 + ∆t ± (1 − ∆t)2 + 4∆tu(1) . (4)
2∆t
Now we encounter a fundamental challenge with nonlinear algebraic equations: the equation
may have more than one solution. How do we pick the right solution? This is in general a hard
problem. In the present simple case, however, we can analyze the roots mathematically and
provide an answer. The idea is to expand the roots in a series in ∆t and truncate after the linear
term since the Backward Euler scheme will introduce an error proportional to ∆t anyway. Using
sympy we find the following Taylor series expansions of the roots:

>>> import sympy as sym

>>> dt, u_1, u = sym.symbols(’dt u_1 u’)
>>> r1, r2 = sym.solve(dt*u**2 + (1-dt)*u - u_1, u) # find roots
>>> r1
(dt - sqrt(dt**2 + 4*dt*u_1 - 2*dt + 1) - 1)/(2*dt)
>>> r2
(dt + sqrt(dt**2 + 4*dt*u_1 - 2*dt + 1) - 1)/(2*dt)
>>> print r1.series(dt, 0, 2) # 2 terms in dt, around dt=0
-1/dt + 1 - u_1 + dt*(u_1**2 - u_1) + O(dt**2)
>>> print r2.series(dt, 0, 2)
u_1 + dt*(-u_1**2 + u_1) + O(dt**2)

We see that the r1 root, corresponding to a minus sign in front of the square root in (4), behaves
as 1/∆t and will therefore blow up as ∆t → 0! Since we know that u takes on finite values,
actually it is less than or equal to 1, only the r2 root is of relevance in this case: as ∆t → 0,
u → u(1) , which is the expected result.
For those who are not well experienced with approximating mathematical formulas by series
expansion, an alternative method of investigation is simply to compute the limits of the two roots
as ∆t → 0 and see if a limit unreasonable:

>>> print r1.limit(dt, 0)

-oo
>>> print r2.limit(dt, 0)
u_1

1.5 Linearization
When the time integration of an ODE results in a nonlinear algebraic equation, we must normally
find its solution by defining a sequence of linear equations and hope that the solutions of these
linear equations converge to the desired solution of the nonlinear algebraic equation. Usually, this
means solving the linear equation repeatedly in an iterative fashion. Alternatively, the nonlinear
equation can sometimes be approximated by one linear equation, and consequently there is no
need for iteration.
Constructing a linear equation from a nonlinear one requires linearization of each nonlinear
term. This can be done manually as in Picard iteration, or fully algorithmically as in Newton’s
method. Examples will best illustrate how to linearize nonlinear problems.

1.6 Picard iteration

Let us write (3) in a more compact form

F (u) = au2 + bu + c = 0,

7
with a = ∆t, b = 1 − ∆t, and c = −u(1) . Let u− be an available approximation of the unknown
u. Then we can linearize the term u2 simply by writing u− u. The resulting equation, F̂ (u) = 0,
is now linear and hence easy to solve:

F (u) ≈ F̂ (u) = au− u + bu + c = 0 .

Since the equation F̂ = 0 is only approximate, the solution u does not equal the exact solution
ue of the exact equation F (ue ) = 0, but we can hope that u is closer to ue than u− is, and hence
it makes sense to repeat the procedure, i.e., set u− = u and solve F̂ (u) = 0 again. There is no
guarantee that u is closer to ue than u− , but this approach has proven to be effective in a wide
range of applications.
The idea of turning a nonlinear equation into a linear one by using an approximation u− of u
in nonlinear terms is a widely used approach that goes under many names: fixed-point iteration,
the method of successive substitutions, nonlinear Richardson iteration, and Picard iteration. We
will stick to the latter name.
Picard iteration for solving the nonlinear equation arising from the Backward Euler discretiza-
tion of the logistic equation can be written as
c
u=− , u− ← u .
au− + b
The ← symbols means assignment (we set u− equal to the value of u). The iteration is started
with the value of the unknown at the previous time level: u− = u(1) .
Some people prefer an explicit iteration counter as superscript in the mathematical notation.
Let uk be the computed approximation to the solution in iteration k. In iteration k + 1 we want
to solve
c
auk uk+1 + buk+1 + c = 0 ⇒ uk+1 = − , k = 0, 1, . . .
auk
+b
Since we need to perform the iteration at every time level, the time level counter is often also
included (recall that c = −un−1 ):

un−1
aun,k un,k+1 + bun,k+1 − un−1 = 0 ⇒ un,k+1 = , k = 0, 1, . . . ,
aun,k + b
with the start value un,0 = un−1 and the final converged value un = un,k for sufficiently large k.
However, we will normally apply a mathematical notation in our final formulas that is as close
as possible to what we aim to write in a computer code and then it becomes natural to use u and
u− instead of uk+1 and uk or un,k+1 and un,k .

Stopping criteria. The iteration method can typically be terminated when the change in the
solution is smaller than a tolerance u :

|u − u− | ≤ u ,
or when the residual in the equation is sufficiently small (r ),

|F (u)| = |au2 + bu + c| < r .

8
A single Picard iteration. Instead of iterating until a stopping criterion is fulfilled, one may
iterate a specific number of times. Just one Picard iteration is popular as this corresponds to
the intuitive idea of approximating a nonlinear term like (un )2 by un−1 un . This follows from the
linearization u− un and the initial choice of u− = un−1 at time level tn . In other words, a single
Picard iteration corresponds to using the solution at the previous time level to linearize nonlinear
terms. The resulting discretization becomes (using proper values for a, b, and c)

un − un−1
= un (1 − un−1 ), (5)
∆t
which is a linear algebraic equation in the unknown un , and therefore we can easily solve for un ,
and there is no need for any alternative notation.
We shall later refer to the strategy of taking one Picard step, or equivalently, linearizing terms
with use of the solution at the previous time step, as the Picard1 method. It is a widely used
approach in science and technology, but with some limitations if ∆t is not sufficiently small (as
will be illustrated later).

Notice.
Equation (5) does not correspond to a “pure” finite difference method where the equation is
sampled at a point and derivatives replaced by differences (because the un−1 term on the
right-hand side must then be un ). The best interpretation of the scheme (5) is a Backward
Euler difference combined with a single (perhaps insufficient) Picard iteration at each time
level, with the value at the previous time level as start for the Picard iteration.

1.7 Linearization by a geometric mean

We consider now a Crank-Nicolson discretization of (1). This means that the time derivative is
approximated by a centered difference,
1
[Dt u = u(1 − u)]n+ 2 ,
written out as

un+1 − un 1 1
= un+ 2 − (un+ 2 )2 . (6)
∆t
1
The term un+ 2 is normally approximated by an arithmetic mean,
1 n 1
un+ 2 ≈
(u + un+1 ),
2
such that the scheme involves the unknown function only at the time levels where we actually
compute it. The same arithmetic mean applied to the nonlinear term gives
1 1 n
(un+ 2 )2 ≈ (u + un+1 )2 ,
4
1
which is nonlinear in the unknown un+1 . However, using a geometric mean for (un+ 2 )2 is a way
of linearizing the nonlinear term in (6):
1
(un+ 2 )2 ≈ un un+1 .

9
 1
Using an arithmetic mean on the linear un+ 2 term in (6) and a geometric mean for the second
term, results in a linearized equation for the unknown un+1 :

un+1 − un 1
= (un + un+1 ) − un un+1 ,
∆t 2
which can readily be solved:

1 + 12 ∆t
un+1 = un .
1 + ∆tun − 21 ∆t
This scheme can be coded directly, and since there is no nonlinear algebraic equation to iterate
over, we skip the simplified notation with u for un+1 and u(1) for un . The technique with using a
geometric average is an example of transforming a nonlinear algebraic equation to a linear one,
without any need for iterations.
The geometric mean approximation is often very effective for linearizing quadratic nonlinearities.
Both the arithmetic and geometric mean approximations have truncation errors of order ∆t2 and
are therefore compatible with the truncation error O(∆t2 ) of the centered difference approximation
for u0 in the Crank-Nicolson method.
Applying the operator notation for the means and finite differences, the linearized Crank-
Nicolson scheme for the logistic equation can be compactly expressed as
t,g n+ 1
[Dt u = ut − u2 ] 2 .

Remark.
If we use an arithmetic mean instead of a geometric mean for the nonlinear term in (6), we
end up with a nonlinear term (un+1 )2 . This term can be linearized as u− un+1 in a Picard
iteration approach and in particular as un un+1 in a Picard1 iteration approach. The latter
gives a scheme almost identical to the one arising from a geometric mean (the difference in
un+1 being 41 ∆tun (un+1 − un ) ≈ 14 ∆t2 u0 u, i.e., a difference of O(∆t2 )).

1.8 Newton’s method

The Backward Euler scheme (2) for the logistic equation leads to a nonlinear algebraic equation
(3). Now we write any nonlinear algebraic equation in the general and compact form

F (u) = 0 .
Newton’s method linearizes this equation by approximating F (u) with its Taylor series expansion
around a computed value u− and keeping only the linear part:

1
F (u) = F (u− ) + F 0 (u− )(u − u− ) + F 00 (u− )(u − u− )2 + · · ·
2
≈ F (u− ) + F 0 (u− )(u − u− ) = F̂ (u) .

The linear equation F̂ (u) = 0 has the solution

10
 F (u− )
u = u− − .
F 0 (u− )
Expressed with an iteration index in the unknown, Newton’s method takes on the more familiar
mathematical form

F (uk )
uk+1 = uk − , k = 0, 1, . . .
F 0 (uk )
It can be shown that the error in iteration k + 1 of Newton’s method is the square of the error
in iteration k, a result referred to as quadratic convergence. This means that for small errors
the method converges very fast, and in particular much faster than Picard iteration and other
iteration methods. (The proof of this result is found in most textbooks on numerical analysis.)
However, the quadratic convergence appears only if uk is sufficiently close to the solution. Further
away from the solution the method can easily converge very slowly or diverge. The reader is
encouraged to do Exercise 3 to get a better understanding for the behavior of the method.
Application of Newton’s method to the logistic equation discretized by the Backward Euler
method is straightforward as we have

F (u) = au2 + bu + c, a = ∆t, b = 1 − ∆t, c = −u(1) ,

and then

F 0 (u) = 2au + b .
The iteration method becomes

a(u− )2 + bu− + c
u = u− − , u− ← u . (7)
2au− + b
At each time level, we start the iteration by setting u− = u(1) . Stopping criteria as listed for the
Picard iteration can be used also for Newton’s method.
An alternative mathematical form, where we write out a, b, and c, and use a time level counter
n and an iteration counter k, takes the form

∆t(un,k )2 + (1 − ∆t)un,k − un−1

un,k+1 = un,k − , un,0 = un−1 , k = 0, 1, . . . (8)
2∆tun,k + 1 − ∆t
A program implementation is much closer to (7) than to (8), but the latter is better aligned with
the established mathematical notation used in the literature.

1.9 Relaxation
One iteration in Newton’s method or Picard iteration consists of solving a linear problem F̂ (u) = 0.
Sometimes convergence problems arise because the new solution u of F̂ (u) = 0 is “too far away”
from the previously computed solution u− . A remedy is to introduce a relaxation, meaning that
we first solve F̂ (u∗ ) = 0 for a suggested value u∗ and then we take u as a weighted mean of what
we had, u− , and what our linearized equation F̂ = 0 suggests, u∗ :

u = ωu∗ + (1 − ω)u− .
The parameter ω is known as a relaxation parameter, and a choice ω < 1 may prevent divergent
iterations.

11
 Relaxation in Newton’s method can be directly incorporated in the basic iteration formula:

F (u− )
u = u− − ω . (9)
F 0 (u− )

1.10 Implementation and experiments

The program logistic.py1 contains implementations of all the methods described above. Below
is an extract of the file showing how the Picard and Newton methods are implemented for a
Backward Euler discretization of the logistic equation.

def BE_logistic(u0, dt, Nt, choice=’Picard’,

eps_r=1E-3, omega=1, max_iter=1000):
if choice == ’Picard1’:
choice = ’Picard’
max_iter = 1
u = np.zeros(Nt+1)
iterations = []
u[0] = u0
for n in range(1, Nt+1):
a = dt
b = 1 - dt
c = -u[n-1]
if choice == ’Picard’:
def F(u):
return a*u**2 + b*u + c
u_ = u[n-1]
k = 0
while abs(F(u_)) > eps_r and k < max_iter:
u_ = omega*(-c/(a*u_ + b)) + (1-omega)*u_
k += 1
u[n] = u_
iterations.append(k)
elif choice == ’Newton’:
def F(u):
return a*u**2 + b*u + c
def dF(u):
return 2*a*u + b
u_ = u[n-1]
k = 0
while abs(F(u_)) > eps_r and k < max_iter:
u_ = u_ - omega*F(u_)/dF(u_)
k += 1
u[n] = u_
iterations.append(k)
return u, iterations

The Crank-Nicolson method utilizing a linearization based on the geometric mean gives a
simpler algorithm:

def CN_logistic(u0, dt, Nt):

u = np.zeros(Nt+1)
u[0] = u0
1 http://tinyurl.com/nm5587k/nonlin/logistic.py

12
 for n in range(0, Nt):
u[n+1] = (1 + 0.5*dt)/(1 + dt*u[n] - 0.5*dt)*u[n]
return u

We may run experiments with the model problem (1) and the different strategies for dealing
with nonlinearities as described above. For a quite coarse time resolution, ∆t = 0.9, use of a
tolerance r = 0.1 in the stopping criterion introduces an iteration error, especially in the Picard
iterations, that is visibly much larger than the time discretization error due to a large ∆t. This
is illustrated by comparing the upper two plots in Figure 1. The one to the right has a stricter
tolerance  = 10−3 , which leads to all the curves corresponding to Picard and Newton iteration
to be on top of each other (and no changes can be visually observed by reducing r further). The
reason why Newton’s method does much better than Picard iteration in the upper left plot is
that Newton’s method with one step comes far below the r tolerance, while the Picard iteration
needs on average 7 iterations to bring the residual down to r = 10−1 , which gives insufficient
accuracy in the solution of the nonlinear equation. It is obvious that the Picard1 method gives
significant errors in addition to the time discretization unless the time step is as small as in the
lower right plot.
The BE exact curve corresponds to using the exact solution of the quadratic equation at each
time level, so this curve is only affected by the Backward Euler time discretization. The CN gm
curve corresponds to the theoretically more accurate Crank-Nicolson discretization, combined
with a geometric mean for linearization. This curve appears as more accurate, especially if we
take the plot in the lower right with a small ∆t and an appropriately small r value as the exact
curve.
When it comes to the need for iterations, Figure 2 displays the number of iterations required
at each time level for Newton’s method and Picard iteration. The smaller ∆t is, the better
starting value we have for the iteration, and the faster the convergence is. With ∆t = 0.9 Picard
iteration requires on average 32 iterations per time step, but this number is dramatically reduced
as ∆t is reduced.
However, introducing relaxation and a parameter ω = 0.8 immediately reduces the average
of 32 to 7, indicating that for the large ∆t = 0.9, Picard iteration takes too long steps. An
approximately optimal value for ω in this case is 0.5, which results in an average of only 2
iterations! Even more dramatic impact of ω appears when ∆t = 1: Picard iteration does not
convergence in 1000 iterations, but ω = 0.5 again brings the average number of iterations down
to 2.

Remark. The simple Crank-Nicolson method with a geometric mean for the quadratic nonlin-
earity gives visually more accurate solutions than the Backward Euler discretization. Even with
a tolerance of r = 10−3 , all the methods for treating the nonlinearities in the Backward Euler
discretization give graphs that cannot be distinguished. So for accuracy in this problem, the time
discretization is much more crucial than r . Ideally, one should estimate the error in the time
discretization, as the solution progresses, and set r accordingly.

1.11 Generalization to a general nonlinear ODE

Let us see how the various methods in the previous sections can be applied to the more generic
model

u0 = f (u, t), (10)

where f is a nonlinear function of u.

13
 1.0 dt=0.9, eps=5E-02 1.0 dt=0.9, eps=1E-03

0.9 0.9

0.8 0.8

0.7 0.7

0.6 0.6
u

u
0.5 0.5

0.4 FE 0.4 FE
BE exact BE exact
0.3 BE Picard 0.3 BE Picard
BE Picard1 BE Picard1
0.2 BE Newton 0.2 BE Newton
CN gm CN gm
0.1 0.1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
t t

1.0 dt=0.45, eps=1E-03 1.0 dt=0.09, eps=1E-04

0.9 0.9

0.8 0.8

0.7 0.7

0.6 0.6
u

0.5 0.5

0.4 FE 0.4 FE
BE exact BE exact
0.3 BE Picard 0.3 BE Picard
BE Picard1 BE Picard1
0.2 BE Newton 0.2 BE Newton
CN gm CN gm
0.1 0.1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
t t

Figure 1: Impact of solution strategy and time step length on the solution.

Explicit time discretization. Explicit ODE methods like the Forward Euler scheme, Runge-
Kutta methods, Adams-Bashforth methods all evaluate f at time levels where u is already
computed, so nonlinearities in f do not pose any difficulties.

Backward Euler discretization. Approximating u0 by a backward difference leads to a

Backward Euler scheme, which can be written as

F (un ) = un − ∆t f (un , tn ) − un−1 = 0,

or alternatively

F (u) = u − ∆t f (u, tn ) − u(1) = 0 .

A simple Picard iteration, not knowing anything about the nonlinear structure of f , must
approximate f (u, tn ) by f (u− , tn ):

F̂ (u) = u − ∆t f (u− , tn ) − u(1) .

The iteration starts with u− = u(1) and proceeds with repeating

14
 dt=0.9, eps=5E-02 dt=0.9, eps=1E-03
12 Picard Picard
Newton 40 Newton
10 35

30
8
No of iterations

No of iterations
25
6 20

15
4
10
2
5

0 0
2 4 6 8 10 2 4 6 8 10
Time level Time level

6 dt=0.45, eps=1E-03 3.0 dt=0.09, eps=1E-04

Picard Picard
Newton Newton
5 2.5

4 2.0
No of iterations

No of iterations

3 1.5

2 1.0

1 0.5

0 0.0
5 10 15 20 20 40 60 80 100
Time level Time level

Figure 2: Comparison of the number of iterations at various time levels for Picard and Newton
iteration.

u∗ = ∆t f (u− , tn ) + u(1) , u = ωu∗ + (1 − ω)u− , u− ← u,

until a stopping criterion is fulfilled.

Explicit vs implicit treatment of nonlinear terms.

Evaluating f for a known u− is referred to as explicit treatment of f , while if f (u, t) has
some structure, say f (u, t) = u3 , parts of f can involve the known u, as in the manual
linearization like (u− )2 u, and then the treatment of f is “more implicit” and “less explicit”.
This terminology is inspired by time discretization of u0 = f (u, t), where evaluating f for
known u values gives explicit schemes, while treating f or parts of f implicitly, makes f
contribute to the unknown terms in the equation at the new time level.
Explicit treatment of f usually means stricter conditions on ∆t to achieve stability of
time discretization schemes. The same applies to iteration techniques for nonlinear algebraic
equations: the “less” we linearize f (i.e., the more we keep of u in the original formula), the
faster the convergence may be.

15
 We may say that f (u, t) = u3 is treated explicitly if we evaluate f as (u− )3 , partially
implicit if we linearize as (u− )2 u and fully implicit if we represent f by u3 . (Of course, the
fully implicit representation will require further linearization, but with f (u, t) = u2 a fully
implicit treatment is possible if the resulting quadratic equation is solved with a formula.)
For the ODE u0 = −u3 with f (u, t) = −u3 and coarse time resolution ∆t = 0.4, Picard
iteration with (u− )2 u requires 8 iterations with r = 10−3 for the first time step, while
(u− )3 leads to 22 iterations. After about 10 time steps both approaches are down to about
2 iterations per time step, but this example shows a potential of treating f more implicitly.
A trick to treat f implicitly in Picard iteration is to evaluate it as f (u− , t)u/u− . For a
polynomial f , f (u, t) = um , this corresponds to (u− )m−1 u. Sometimes this more implicit
treatment has no effect, as with f (u, t) = exp(−u) and f (u, t) = ln(1 + u), but with
f (u, t) = sin(2(u + 1)), the f (u− , t)u/u− trick leads to 7, 9, and 11 iterations during the
first three steps, while f (u− , t) demands 17, 21, and 20 iterations. (Experiments can be
done with the code ODE_Picard_tricks.pya .)
a http://tinyurl.com/nm5587k/nonlin/ODE_Picard_tricks.py

Newton’s method applied to a Backward Euler discretization of u0 = f (u, t) requires the

computation of the derivative
∂f
F 0 (u) = 1 − ∆t (u, tn ) .
∂u
Starting with the solution at the previous time level, u− = u(1) , we can just use the standard
formula

F (u− ) u− − ∆t f (u− , tn ) − u(1)

u = u− − ω = u−
− ω . (11)
F 0 (u− ) ∂
1 − ∆t ∂u f (u− , tn )

Crank-Nicolson discretization. The standard Crank-Nicolson scheme with arithmetic mean

approximation of f takes the form

un+1 − un 1
= (f (un+1 , tn+1 ) + f (un , tn )) .
∆t 2
We can write the scheme as a nonlinear algebraic equation
1 1
F (u) = u − u(1) − ∆t f (u, tn+1 ) − ∆t f (u(1) , tn ) = 0 . (12)
2 2
A Picard iteration scheme must in general employ the linearization
1 1
F̂ (u) = u − u(1) − ∆t f (u− , tn+1 ) − ∆t f (u(1) , tn ),
2 2
while Newton’s method can apply the general formula (11) with F (u) given in (12) and
1 ∂f
F 0 (u) = 1 − ∆t (u, tn+1 ) .
2 ∂u

16
1.12 Systems of ODEs
We may write a system of ODEs

d
u0 (t) = f0 (u0 (t), u1 (t), . . . , uN (t), t),
dt
d
u1 (t) = f1 (u0 (t), u1 (t), . . . , uN (t), t),
dt
..
.
d
uN (t) = fN (u0 (t), u1 (t), . . . , uN (t), t),
dt
as

u0 = f (u, t), u(0) = U0 , (13)

if we interpret u as a vector u = (u0 (t), u1 (t), . . . , uN (t)) and f as a vector function with
components (f0 (u, t), f1 (u, t), . . . , fN (u, t)).
Most solution methods for scalar ODEs, including the Forward and Backward Euler schemes
and the Crank-Nicolson method, generalize in a straightforward way to systems of ODEs simply
by using vector arithmetics instead of scalar arithmetics, which corresponds to applying the scalar
scheme to each component of the system. For example, here is a backward difference scheme
applied to each component,

un0 − un−1
0
= f0 (un , tn ),
∆t
un1 − un−1
1
= f1 (un , tn ),
∆t
..
.
unN − un−1
N
= fN (un , tn ),
∆t
which can be written more compactly in vector form as

un − un−1
= f (un , tn ) .
∆t
This is a system of algebraic equations,

un − ∆t f (un , tn ) − un−1 = 0,
or written out

un0 − ∆t f0 (un , tn ) − un−1

0 = 0,
..
.
unN − ∆t fN (un , tn ) − un−1
N = 0.

17
Example. We shall address the 2 × 2 ODE system for oscillations of a pendulum subject to
gravity and air drag. The system can be written as

ω̇ = − sin θ − βω|ω|, (14)

θ̇ = ω, (15)

where β is a dimensionless parameter (this is the scaled, dimensionless version of the original,
physical model). The unknown components of the system are the angle θ(t) and the angular
velocity ω(t). We introduce u0 = ω and u1 = θ, which leads to

u00 = f0 (u, t) = − sin u1 − βu0 |u0 |,

u01 = f1 (u, t) = u0 .

A Crank-Nicolson scheme reads

un+1
0 − un0 n+ 1 n+ 1 n+ 1
= − sin u1 2 − βu0 2 |u0 2 |
∆t  
1 n+1 1
≈ − sin (u1 + u1 ) − β (un+1
n
+ un0 )|un+1 + un0 |, (16)
2 4 0 0

un+1 − un1 n+ 1 1
1
= u0 2 ≈ (un+1 + un0 ) . (17)
∆t 2 0
This is a coupled system of two nonlinear algebraic equations in two unknowns un+1
0 and un+1
1 .
n+1 n+1 (1)
Using the notation u0 and u1 for the unknowns u0 and u1 in this system, writing u0
(1)
and u1 for the previous values un0 and un1 , multiplying by ∆t and moving the terms to the
left-hand sides, gives

 
(1) 1 (1) 1 (1) (1)
u0 − u0 + ∆t sin (u1 + u1 ) + ∆tβ(u0 + u0 )|u0 + u0 | = 0, (18)
2 4
(1) 1 (1)
u1 − u1 − ∆t(u0 + u0 ) = 0 . (19)
2
Obviously, we have a need for solving systems of nonlinear algebraic equations, which is the topic
of the next section.

2 Systems of nonlinear algebraic equations

Implicit time discretization methods for a system of ODEs, or a PDE, lead to systems of nonlinear
algebraic equations, written compactly as

F (u) = 0,
where u is a vector of unknowns u = (u0 , . . . , uN ), and F is a vector function: F = (F0 , . . . , FN ).
The system at the end of Section 1.12 fits this notation with N = 2, F0 (u) given by the left-hand
side of (18), while F1 (u) is the left-hand side of (19).

18
 Sometimes the equation system has a special structure because of the underlying problem,
e.g.,

A(u)u = b(u),
with A(u) as an (N + 1) × (N + 1) matrix function of u and b as a vector function: b = (b0 , . . . , bN ).
We shall next explain how Picard iteration and Newton’s method can be applied to systems
like F (u) = 0 and A(u)u = b(u). The exposition has a focus on ideas and practical computations.
More theoretical considerations, including quite general results on convergence properties of these
methods, can be found in Kelley [1].

2.1 Picard iteration

We cannot apply Picard iteration to nonlinear equations unless there is some special structure.
For the commonly arising case A(u)u = b(u) we can linearize the product A(u)u to A(u− )u and
b(u) as b(u− ). That is, we use the most previously computed approximation in A and b to arrive
at a linear system for u:

A(u− )u = b(u− ) .
A relaxed iteration takes the form

A(u− )u∗ = b(u− ), u = ωu∗ + (1 − ω)u− .

In other words, we solve a system of nonlinear algebraic equations as a sequence of linear systems.

Algorithm for relaxed Picard iteration.

Given A(u)u = b(u) and an initial guess u− , iterate until convergence:

1. solve A(u− )u∗ = b(u− ) with respect to u∗

2. u = ωu∗ + (1 − ω)u−

3. u− ← u

“Until convergence” means that the iteration is stopped when the change in the unknown,
||u − u− ||, or the residual ||A(u)u − b(u)||, is sufficiently small, see Section 2.3 for more details.

2.2 Newton’s method

The natural starting point for Newton’s method is the general nonlinear vector equation F (u) = 0.
As for a scalar equation, the idea is to approximate F around a known value u− by a linear
function F̂ , calculated from the first two terms of a Taylor expansion of F . In the multi-variate
case these two terms become

F (u− ) + J(u− ) · (u − u− ),
where J is the Jacobian of F , defined by

19
 ∂Fi
Ji,j = .
∂uj
So, the original nonlinear system is approximated by

F̂ (u) = F (u− ) + J(u− ) · (u − u− ) = 0,

which is linear in u and can be solved in a two-step procedure: first solve Jδu = −F (u− ) with
respect to the vector δu and then update u = u− + δu. A relaxation parameter can easily be
incorporated:

u = ω(u− + δu) + (1 − ω)u− = u− + ωδu .

Algorithm for Newton’s method.

Given F (u) = 0 and an initial guess u− , iterate until convergence:

1. solve Jδu = −F (u− ) with respect to δu

2. u = u− + ωδu
3. u− ← u

For the special system with structure A(u)u = b(u),

X
Fi = Ai,k (u)uk − bi (u),
k

one gets
X ∂Ai,k ∂bi
Ji,j = Ai,j + uk − . (20)
∂uj ∂uj
k

We realize that the Jacobian needed in Newton’s method consists of A(u− ) as in the Picard
iteration plus two additional terms arising from the differentiation. Using the notation A0 (u)
for ∂A/∂u (a quantity with three indices: ∂Ai,k /∂uj ), and b0 (u) for ∂b/∂u (a quantity with two
indices: ∂bi /∂uj ), we can write the linear system to be solved as

(A + A0 u − b0 )δu = −Au + b,
or

(A(u− ) + A0 (u− )u− − b0 (u− ))δu = −A(u− )u− + b(u− ) .

Rearranging the terms demonstrates the difference from the system solved in each Picard iteration:

A(u− )(u− + δu) − b(u− ) + γ(A0 (u− )u− − b0 (u− ))δu = 0 .

| {z }
Picard system

20
Here we have inserted a parameter γ such that γ = 0 gives the Picard system and γ = 1 gives
the Newton system. Such a parameter can be handy in software to easily switch between the
methods.

Combined algorithm for Picard and Newton iteration.

Given A(u), b(u), and an initial guess u− , iterate until convergence:

1. solve (A(u− ) + γ(A0 (u− )u− − b0 (u− )))δu = −A(u− )u− + b(u− ) with respect to δu
2. u = u− + ωδu

3. u− ← u

γ = 1 gives a Newton method while γ = 0 corresponds to Picard iteration.

2.3 Stopping criteria

Let || · || be the standard Euclidean vector norm. Four termination criteria are much in use:
• Absolute change in solution: ||u − u− || ≤ u
• Relative change in solution: ||u − u− || ≤ u ||u0 ||, where u0 denotes the start value of u− in
the iteration
• Absolute residual: ||F (u)|| ≤ r
• Relative residual: ||F (u)|| ≤ r ||F (u0 )||
To prevent divergent iterations to run forever, one terminates the iterations when the current
number of iterations k exceeds a maximum value kmax .
The relative criteria are most used since they are not sensitive to the characteristic size of u.
Nevertheless, the relative criteria can be misleading when the initial start value for the iteration
is very close to the solution, since an unnecessary reduction in the error measure is enforced. In
such cases the absolute criteria work better. It is common to combine the absolute and relative
measures of the size of the residual, as in

||F (u)|| ≤ rr ||F (u0 )|| + ra , (21)

where rr is the tolerance in the relative criterion and ra is the tolerance in the absolute criterion.
With a very good initial guess for the iteration (typically the solution of a differential equation at
the previous time level), the term ||F (u0 )|| is small and ra is the dominating tolerance. Otherwise,
rr ||F (u0 )|| and the relative criterion dominates.
With the change in solution as criterion we can formulate a combined absolute and relative
measure of the change in the solution:

||δu|| ≤ ur ||u0 || + ua , (22)

The ultimate termination criterion, combining the residual and the change in solution with a
test on the maximum number of iterations, can be expressed as

||F (u)|| ≤ rr ||F (u0 )|| + ra or ||δu|| ≤ ur ||u0 || + ua or k > kmax . (23)

21
2.4 Example: A nonlinear ODE model from epidemiology
The simplest model of the spreading of a disease, such as a flu, takes the form of a 2 × 2 ODE
system

S 0 = −βSI, (24)
0
I = βSI − νI, (25)

where S(t) is the number of people who can get ill (susceptibles) and I(t) is the number of people
who are ill (infected). The constants β > 0 and ν > 0 must be given along with initial conditions
S(0) and I(0).

Implicit time discretization. A Crank-Nicolson scheme leads to a 2 × 2 system of nonlinear

algebraic equations in the unknowns S n+1 and I n+1 :

S n+1 − S n 1 β
= −β[SI]n+ 2 ≈ − (S n I n + S n+1 I n+1 ), (26)
∆t 2
I n+1 − I n 1 1 β ν
= β[SI]n+ 2 − νI n+ 2 ≈ (S n I n + S n+1 I n+1 ) − (I n + I n+1 ) . (27)
∆t 2 2
Introducing S for S n+1 , S (1) for S n , I for I n+1 , I (1) for I n , we can rewrite the system as

1
FS (S, I) = S − S (1) + ∆tβ(S (1) I (1) + SI) = 0, (28)
2
1 1
FI (S, I) = I − I − ∆tβ(S (1) I (1) + SI) + ∆tν(I (1) + I) = 0 .
(1)
(29)
2 2

A Picard iteration. We assume that we have approximations S − and I − to S and I. A way

of linearizing the only nonlinear term SI is to write I − S in the FS = 0 equation and S − I in the
FI = 0 equation, which also decouples the equations. Solving the resulting linear equations with
respect to the unknowns S and I gives

S (1) − 12 ∆tβS (1) I (1)

S= ,
1 + 12 ∆tβI −
I (1) + 21 ∆tβS (1) I (1) − 12 ∆tνI (1)
I= .
1 − 12 ∆tβS − + 12 ∆tν

Before a new iteration, we must update S − ← S and I − ← I.

Newton’s method. The nonlinear system (28)-(29) can be written as F (u) = 0 with F =
(FS , FI ) and u = (S, I). The Jacobian becomes
 ∂ ∂
1 + 12 ∆tβI 1
  
J= ∂S FS ∂I FS = 2 ∆tβS .
∂
∂S FI
∂
∂I FI
− 12 ∆tβI 1 − 21 ∆tβS + 12 ∆tν
The Newton system J(u− )δu = −F (u− ) to be solved in each iteration is then

22
 1 + 12 ∆tβI − 1 −
  
2 ∆tβS δS
=
− 12 ∆tβI − 1 − 12 ∆tβS − + 21 ∆tν δI
S − − S (1) + 21 ∆tβ(S (1) I (1) + S − I − )
 
−
I − − I (1) − 21 ∆tβ(S (1) I (1) + S − I − ) + 21 ∆tν(I (1) + I − )

Remark. For this particular system of ODEs, explicit time integration methods work very well.
Even a Forward Euler scheme is fine, but the 4-th order Runge-Kutta method is an excellent
balance between high accuracy, high efficiency, and simplicity.

3 Linearization at the differential equation level

The attention is now turned to nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) and application of
the techniques explained above for ODEs. The model problem is a nonlinear diffusion equation
for u(x, t):

∂u
= ∇ · (α(u)∇u) + f (u), x ∈ Ω, t ∈ (0, T ], (30)
∂t
∂u
−α(u) = g, x ∈ ∂ΩN , t ∈ (0, T ], (31)
∂n
u = u0 , x ∈ ∂ΩD , t ∈ (0, T ] . (32)

In the present section, our aim is to discretize this problem in time and then present techniques
for linearizing the time-discrete PDE problem “at the PDE level” such that we transform the
nonlinear stationary PDE problem at each time level into a sequence of linear PDE problems,
which can be solved using any method for linear PDEs. This strategy avoids the solution of
systems of nonlinear algebraic equations. In Section 4 we shall take the opposite (and more
common) approach: discretize the nonlinear problem in time and space first, and then solve the
resulting nonlinear algebraic equations at each time level by the methods of Section 2. Very often,
the two approaches are mathematically identical, so there is no preference from a computational
efficiency point of view. The details of the ideas sketched above will hopefully become clear
through the forthcoming examples.

3.1 Explicit time integration

The nonlinearities in the PDE are trivial to deal with if we choose an explicit time integration
method for (30), such as the Forward Euler method:

[Dt+ u = ∇ · (α(u)∇u) + f (u)]n ,

or written out,

un+1 − un
= ∇ · (α(un )∇un ) + f (un ),
∆t
which is a linear equation in the unknown un+1 with solution

un+1 = un + ∆t∇ · (α(un )∇un ) + ∆tf (un ) .

23
 The disadvantage with this discretization is the strict stability criterion ∆t ≤ h2 /(6 max α)
for the case f = 0 and a standard 2nd-order finite difference discretization in 3D space with mesh
cell sizes h = ∆x = ∆y = ∆z.

3.2 Backward Euler scheme and Picard iteration

A Backward Euler scheme for (30) reads

[Dt− u = ∇ · (α(u)∇u) + f (u)]n .

Written out,

un − un−1
= ∇ · (α(un )∇un ) + f (un ) . (33)
∆t
This is a nonlinear PDE for the unknown function un (x). Such a PDE can be viewed as a
time-independent PDE where un−1 (x) is a known function.
We introduce a Picard iteration with k as iteration counter. A typical linearization of the
∇ · (α(un )∇un ) term in iteration k + 1 is to use the previously computed un,k approximation in
the diffusion coefficient: α(un,k ). The nonlinear source term is treated similarly: f (un,k ). The
unknown function un,k+1 then fulfills the linear PDE

un,k+1 − un−1
= ∇ · (α(un,k )∇un,k+1 ) + f (un,k ) . (34)
∆t
The initial guess for the Picard iteration at this time level can be taken as the solution at the
previous time level: un,0 = un−1 .
We can alternatively apply the implementation-friendly notation where u corresponds to the
unknown we want to solve for, i.e., un,k+1 above, and u− is the most recently computed value,
un,k above. Moreover, u(1) denotes the unknown function at the previous time level, un−1 above.
The PDE to be solved in a Picard iteration then looks like

u − u(1)
= ∇ · (α(u− )∇u) + f (u− ) . (35)
∆t
At the beginning of the iteration we start with the value from the previous time level: u− = u(1) ,
and after each iteration, u− is updated to u.

Remark on notation.
The previous derivations of the numerical scheme for time discretizations of PDEs have,
strictly speaking, a somewhat sloppy notation, but it is much used and convenient to read.
A more precise notation must distinguish clearly between the exact solution of the PDE
problem, here denoted ue (x, t), and the exact solution of the spatial problem, arising after
time discretization at each time level, where (33) is an example. The latter is here represented
as un (x) and is an approximation to ue (x, tn ). Then we have another approximation un,k (x)
to un (x) when solving the nonlinear PDE problem for un by iteration methods, as in (34).
In our notation, u is a synonym for un,k+1 and u(1) is a synonym for un−1 , inspired by
what are natural variable names in a code. We will usually state the PDE problem in terms
of u and quickly redefine the symbol u to mean the numerical approximation, while ue is not
explicitly introduced unless we need to talk about the exact solution and the approximate
solution at the same time.

24
3.3 Backward Euler scheme and Newton’s method
At time level n, we have to solve the stationary PDE (33). In the previous section, we saw how
this can be done with Picard iterations. Another alternative is to apply the idea of Newton’s
method in a clever way. Normally, Newton’s method is defined for systems of algebraic equations,
but the idea of the method can be applied at the PDE level too.

Linearization via Taylor expansions. Let un,k be the most recently computed approximation
to the unknown un . We seek a better approximation on the form

un = un,k + δu . (36)
The idea is to insert (36) in (33), Taylor expand the nonlinearities and keep only the terms that
are linear in δu (which makes (36) an approximation for un ). Then we can solve a linear PDE for
the correction δu and use (36) to find a new approximation

un,k+1 = un,k + δu
to un . Repeating this procedure gives a sequence un,k+1 , k = 0, 1, . . . that hopefully converges to
the goal un .
Let us carry out all the mathematical details for the nonlinear diffusion PDE discretized by
the Backward Euler method. Inserting (36) in (33) gives

un,k + δu − un−1
= ∇ · (α(un,k + δu)∇(un,k + δu)) + f (un,k + δu) . (37)
∆t
We can Taylor expand α(un,k + δu) and f (un,k + δu):

dα n,k
α(un,k + δu) = α(un,k ) + (u )δu + O(δu2 ) ≈ α(un,k ) + α0 (un,k )δu,
du
df n,k
f (un,k + δu) = f (un,k ) + (u )δu + O(δu2 ) ≈ f (un,k ) + f 0 (un,k )δu .
du
Inserting the linear approximations of α and f in (37) results in

un,k + δu − un−1
= ∇ · (α(un,k )∇un,k ) + f (un,k )+
∆t
∇ · (α(un,k )∇δu) + ∇ · (α0 (un,k )δu∇un,k )+
∇ · (α0 (un,k )δu∇δu) + f 0 (un,k )δu . (38)

The term α0 (un,k )δu∇δu is of order δu2 and therefore omitted since we expect the correction δu
to be small (δu  δu2 ). Reorganizing the equation gives a PDE for δu that we can write in short
form as

δF (δu; un,k ) = −F (un,k ),

where

25
 un,k − un−1
F (un,k ) = − ∇ · (α(un,k )∇un,k ) − f (un,k ), (39)
∆t
1
δF (δu; un,k ) = δu − ∇ · (α(un,k )∇δu)−
∆t
∇ · (α0 (un,k )δu∇un,k ) − f 0 (un,k )δu . (40)

Note that δF is a linear function of δu, and F contains only terms that are known, such that the
PDE for δu is indeed linear.

Observations.
The notational form δF = −F resembles the Newton system Jδu = −F for systems of
algebraic equations, with δF as Jδu. The unknown vector in a linear system of algebraic
equations enters the system as a linear operator in terms of a matrix-vector product (Jδu),
while at the PDE level we have a linear differential operator instead (δF ).

Similarity with Picard iteration. We can rewrite the PDE for δu in a slightly different way
too if we define un,k + δu as un,k+1 .

un,k+1 − un−1
= ∇ · (α(un,k )∇un,k+1 ) + f (un,k )
∆t
+ ∇ · (α0 (un,k )δu∇un,k ) + f 0 (un,k )δu . (41)

Note that the first line is the same PDE as arise in the Picard iteration, while the remaining
terms arise from the differentiations that are an inherent ingredient in Newton’s method.

Implementation. For coding we want to introduce u for un , u− for un,k and u(1) for un−1 .
The formulas for F and δF are then more clearly written as

u− − u(1)
F (u− ) = − ∇ · (α(u− )∇u− ) − f (u− ), (42)
∆t
1
δF (δu; u− ) = δu − ∇ · (α(u− )∇δu)−
∆t
∇ · (α0 (u− )δu∇u− ) − f 0 (u− )δu . (43)

The form that orders the PDE as the Picard iteration terms plus the Newton method’s derivative
terms becomes

u − u(1)
= ∇ · (α(u− )∇u) + f (u− )+
∆t
γ(∇ · (α0 (u− )(u − u− )∇u− ) + f 0 (u− )(u − u− )) . (44)

The Picard and full Newton versions correspond to γ = 0 and γ = 1, respectively.

26
Derivation with alternative notation. Some may prefer to derive the linearized PDE for
δu using the more compact notation. We start with inserting un = u− + δu to get

u− + δu − un−1
= ∇ · (α(u− + δu)∇(u− + δu)) + f (u− + δu) .
∆t
Taylor expanding,

α(u− + δu) ≈ α(u− ) + α0 (u− )δu,

f (u− + δu) ≈ f (u− ) + f 0 (u− )δu,

and inserting these expressions gives a less cluttered PDE for δu:

u− + δu − un−1
= ∇ · (α(u− )∇u− ) + f (u− )+
∆t
∇ · (α(u− )∇δu) + ∇ · (α0 (u− )δu∇u− )+
∇ · (α0 (u− )δu∇δu) + f 0 (u− )δu .

3.4 Crank-Nicolson discretization

A Crank-Nicolson discretization of (30) applies a centered difference at tn+ 12 :
1
[Dt u = ∇ · (α(u)∇u) + f (u)]n+ 2 .
Since u is not known at tn+ 12 we need to express the terms on the right-hand side via unknowns
un and un+1 . The standard technique is to apply an arithmetic average,
1 n
1
un+ 2 ≈
(u + un+1 ) .
2
However, with nonlinear terms we have many choices of formulating an arithmetic mean:

1 1 1
[f (u)]n+ 2 ≈ f ( (un + un+1 )) = [f (ut )]n+ 2 , (45)
2
1 1 t 1
[f (u)]n+ 2 ≈ (f (un ) + f (un+1 )) = [f (u) ]n+ 2 , (46)
2
1 1 1 1
[α(u)∇u]n+ 2 ≈ α( (un + un+1 ))∇( (un + un+1 )) = [α(ut )∇ut ]n+ 2 , (47)
2 2
1 1 1 t 1
[α(u)∇u]n+ 2 ≈ (α(un ) + α(un+1 ))∇( (un + un+1 )) = [α(u) ∇ut ]n+ 2 , (48)
2 2
1 1 t 1
[α(u)∇u]n+ 2 ≈ (α(un )∇un + α(un+1 )∇un+1 ) = [α(u)∇u ]n+ 2 . (49)
2
A big question is whether there are significant differences in accuracy between taking the
products of arithmetic means or taking the arithmetic mean of products. Exercise 6 investigates
this question, and the answer is that the approximation is O(∆t2 ) in both cases.

27
4 Discretization of 1D stationary nonlinear differential equa-
tions
Section 3 presented methods for linearizing time-discrete PDEs directly prior to discretization in
space. We can alternatively carry out the discretization in space of the time-discrete nonlinear
PDE problem and get a system of nonlinear algebraic equations, which can be solved by Picard
iteration or Newton’s method as presented in Section 2. This latter approach will now be described
in detail.
We shall work with the 1D problem

− (α(u)u0 )0 + au = f (u), x ∈ (0, L), α(u(0))u0 (0) = C, u(L) = D . (50)

The problem (50) arises from the stationary limit of a diffusion equation,
 
∂u ∂ ∂u
= α(u) − au + f (u), (51)
∂t ∂x ∂x
as t → ∞ and ∂u/∂t → 0. Alternatively, the problem (50) arises at each time level from implicit
time discretization of (51). For example, a Backward Euler scheme for (51) leads to

un − un−1 dun
 
d
= α(un ) − aun + f (un ) . (52)
∆t dx dx
Introducing u(x) for un (x), u(1) for un−1 , and defining f (u) in (50) to be f (u) in (52) plus
un−1 /∆t, gives (50) with a = 1/∆t.

4.1 Finite difference discretization

Since the technical steps in finite difference discretization in space are so much simpler than the
steps in the finite element method, we start with finite difference to illustrate the concept of
handling this nonlinear problem and minimize the spatial discretization details.
The nonlinearity in the differential equation (50) poses no more difficulty than a variable
coefficient, as in the term (α(x)u0 )0 . We can therefore use a standard finite difference approach to
discretizing the Laplace term with a variable coefficient:

[−Dx αDx u + au = f ]i .
Writing this out for a uniform mesh with points xi = i∆x, i = 0, . . . , Nx , leads to

1  
− αi+ 1 (ui+1 − ui ) − α
i− 1 (ui − ui−1 ) + aui = f (ui ) . (53)
∆x2 2 2

This equation is valid at all the mesh points i = 0, 1, . . . , Nx − 1. At i = Nx we have the Dirichlet
condition ui = D. The only difference from the case with (α(x)u0 )0 and f (x) is that now α and f
are functions of u and not only on x: (α(u(x))u0 )0 and f (u(x)).
The quantity αi+ 12 , evaluated between two mesh points, needs a comment. Since α depends
on u and u is only known at the mesh points, we need to express αi+ 12 in terms of ui and ui+1 .
For this purpose we use an arithmetic mean, although a harmonic mean is also common in this
context if α features large jumps. There are two choices of arithmetic means:

28
 1
αi+ 12 ≈ α( 12 (ui + ui+1 )) = [α(ux )]i+ 2 , (54)
1 x i+ 1
αi+ 21 ≈ 2 (α(ui ) + α(ui+1 )) = [α(u) ] 2 (55)

Equation (53) with the latter approximation then looks like

1
− ((α(ui ) + α(ui+1 ))(ui+1 − ui ) − (α(ui−1 ) + α(ui ))(ui − ui−1 ))
2∆x2
+ aui = f (ui ), (56)

or written more compactly,

[−Dx αx Dx u + au = f ]i .
At mesh point i = 0 we have the boundary condition α(u)u0 = C, which is discretized by

[α(u)D2x u = C]0 ,
meaning
u1 − u−1
α(u0 ) =C. (57)
2∆x
The fictitious value u−1 can be eliminated with the aid of (56) for i = 0. Formally, (56) should
be solved with respect to ui−1 and that value (for i = 0) should be inserted in (57), but it is
algebraically much easier to do it the other way around. Alternatively, one can use a ghost
cell [−∆x, 0] and update the u−1 value in the ghost cell according to (57) after every Picard
or Newton iteration. Such an approach means that we use a known u−1 value in (56) from the
previous iteration.

4.2 Solution of algebraic equations

The structure of the equation system. The nonlinear algebraic equations (56) are of the
form A(u)u = b(u) with

1
Ai,i = (α(ui−1 ) + 2α(ui ) + α(ui+1 )) + a,
2∆x2
1
Ai,i−1 = − (α(ui−1 ) + α(ui )),
2∆x2
1
Ai,i+1 = − (α(ui ) + α(ui+1 )),
2∆x2
bi = f (ui ) .

The matrix A(u) is tridiagonal: Ai,j = 0 for j > i + 1 and j < i − 1.

The above expressions are valid for internal mesh points 1 ≤ i ≤ Nx − 1. For i = 0 we need to
express ui−1 = u−1 in terms of u1 using (57):

2∆x
u−1 = u1 − C. (58)
α(u0 )

29
This value must be inserted in A0,0 . The expression for Ai,i+1 applies for i = 0, and Ai,i−1 does
not enter the system when i = 0.
Regarding the last equation, its form depends on whether we include the Dirichlet condition
u(L) = D, meaning uNx = D, in the nonlinear algebraic equation system or not. Suppose we
choose (u0 , u1 , . . . , uNx −1 ) as unknowns, later referred to as systems without Dirichlet conditions.
The last equation corresponds to i = Nx − 1. It involves the boundary value uNx , which is
substituted by D. If the unknown vector includes the boundary value, (u0 , u1 , . . . , uNx ), later
referred to as system including Dirichlet conditions, the equation for i = Nx − 1 just involves the
unknown uNx , and the final equation becomes uNx = D, corresponding to Ai,i = 1 and bi = D
for i = Nx .

Picard iteration. The obvious Picard iteration scheme is to use previously computed values
of ui in A(u) and b(u), as described more in detail in Section 2. With the notation u− for
the most recently computed value of u, we have the system F (u) ≈ F̂ (u) = A(u− )u − b(u− ),
with F = (F0 , F1 , . . . , Fm ), u = (u0 , u1 , . . . , um ). The index m is Nx if the system includes the
Dirichlet condition as a separate equation and Nx − 1 otherwise. The matrix A(u− ) is tridiagonal,
so the solution procedure is to fill a tridiagonal matrix data structure and the right-hand side
vector with the right numbers and call a Gaussian elimination routine for tridiagonal linear
systems.

Mesh with two cells. It helps on the understanding of the details to write out all the
mathematics in a specific case with a small mesh, say just two cells (Nx = 2). We use u−
i for the
i-th component in u− .
The starting point is the basic expressions for the nonlinear equations at mesh point i = 0
and i = 1 are

A0,−1 u−1 + A0,0 u0 + A0,1 u1 = b0 , (59)

A1,0 u0 + A1,1 u1 + A1,2 u2 = b1 . (60)

Equation (59) written out reads

1
( − (α(u−1 ) + α(u0 ))u−1 +
2∆x2
(α(u−1 ) + 2α(u0 ) + α(u1 ))u0 −
(α(u0 ) + α(u1 )))u1 + au0 = f (u0 ) .

We must then replace u−1 by (58). With Picard iteration we get

1
( − (α(u− − −
−1 ) + 2α(u0 ) + α(u1 ))u1 +
2∆x2
(α(u− − −
−1 ) + 2α(u0 ) + α(u1 ))u0 + au0
1
= f (u−
0)− (α(u− −
−1 ) + α(u0 ))C,
α(u−
0 )∆x
where

2∆x
u− −
−1 = u1 − C.
α(u−
0)

30
 Equation (60) contains the unknown u2 for which we have a Dirichlet condition. In case we
omit the condition as a separate equation, (60) with Picard iteration becomes

1
( − (α(u− −
0 ) + α(u1 ))u0 +
2∆x2
(α(u− − −
0 ) + 2α(u1 ) + α(u2 ))u1 −
(α(u− − −
1 ) + α(u2 )))u2 + au1 = f (u1 ) .

We must now move the u2 term to the right-hand side and replace all occurrences of u2 by D:

1
( − (α(u− −
0 ) + α(u1 ))u0 +
2∆x2
(α(u− −
0 ) + 2α(u1 ) + α(D))u1 + au1
1
= f (u−1)+ (α(u−
1 ) + α(D))D .
2∆x2
The two equations can be written as a 2 × 2 system:
    
B0,0 B0,1 u0 d0
= ,
B1,0 B1,1 u1 d1
where

1
B0,0 = (α(u− − −
−1 ) + 2α(u0 ) + α(u1 )) + a (61)
2∆x2
1
B0,1 = − (α(u− − −
−1 ) + 2α(u0 ) + α(u1 )), (62)
2∆x2
1
B1,0 = − (α(u− −
0 ) + α(u1 )), (63)
2∆x2
1
B1,1 = (α(u− −
0 ) + 2α(u1 ) + α(D)) + a, (64)
2∆x2
1
d0 = f (u−0)− (α(u− −
−1 ) + α(u0 ))C, (65)
α(u−0 )∆x
− 1
d1 = f (u1 ) + (α(u−1 ) + α(D))D . (66)
2∆x2
The system with the Dirichlet condition becomes
    
B0,0 B0,1 0 u0 d0
 B1,0 B1,1 B1,2   u1  =  d1  ,
0 0 1 u2 D
with

1
B1,1 = (α(u− −
0 ) + 2α(u1 ) + α(u2 )) + a, (67)
2∆x2
1
B1,2 = − (α(u−
1 ) + α(u2 ))), (68)
2∆x2
d1 = f (u−1 ). (69)
Other entries are as in the 2 × 2 system.

31
Newton’s method. The Jacobian must be derived in order to use Newton’s method. Here it
means that we need to differentiate F (u) = A(u)u − b(u) with respect to the unknown parameters
u0 , u1 , . . . , um (m = Nx or m = Nx − 1, depending on whether the Dirichlet condition is included
in the nonlinear system F (u) = 0 or not). Nonlinear equation number i has the structure

Fi = Ai,i−1 (ui−1 , ui )ui−1 + Ai,i (ui−1 , ui , ui+1 )ui + Ai,i+1 (ui , ui+1 )ui+1 − bi (ui ) .

Computing the Jacobian requires careful differentiation. For example,

∂ ∂Ai,i ∂ui
(Ai,i (ui−1 , ui , ui+1 )ui ) = ui + Ai,i
∂ui ∂ui ∂ui
∂ 1
= ( (α(ui−1 ) + 2α(ui ) + α(ui+1 )) + a)ui +
∂ui 2∆x2
1
(α(ui−1 ) + 2α(ui ) + α(ui+1 )) + a
2∆x2
1
= (2α0 (ui )ui + α(ui−1 ) + 2α(ui ) + α(ui+1 )) + a .
2∆x2
The complete Jacobian becomes

∂Fi ∂Ai,i−1 ∂Ai,i ∂Ai,i+1 ∂bi

Ji,i = = ui−1 + ui + Ai,i + ui+1 −
∂ui ∂ui ∂ui ∂ui ∂ui
1 0 0
= (−α (ui )ui−1 + 2α (ui )ui + α(ui−1 ) + 2α(ui ) + α(ui+1 ))+
2∆x2
1
a− α0 (ui )ui+1 − b0 (ui ),
2∆x2
∂Fi ∂Ai,i−1 ∂Ai,i ∂bi
Ji,i−1 = = ui−1 + Ai−1,i + ui −
∂ui−1 ∂ui−1 ∂ui−1 ∂ui−1
1
= (−α0 (ui−1 )ui−1 − (α(ui−1 ) + α(ui )) + α0 (ui−1 )ui ),
2∆x2
∂Ai,i+1 ∂Ai,i ∂bi
Ji,i+1 = ui+1 + Ai+1,i + ui −
∂ui−1 ∂ui+1 ∂ui+1
1
= (−α (ui+1 )ui+1 − (α(ui ) + α(ui+1 )) + α0 (ui+1 )ui ) .
0
2∆x2
The explicit expression for nonlinear equation number i, Fi (u0 , u1 , . . .), arises from moving the
f (ui ) term in (56) to the left-hand side:

1
Fi = − ((α(ui ) + α(ui+1 ))(ui+1 − ui ) − (α(ui−1 ) + α(ui ))(ui − ui−1 ))
2∆x2
+ aui − f (ui ) = 0 . (70)

At the boundary point i = 0, u−1 must be replaced using the formula (58). When the Dirichlet
condition at i = Nx is not a part of the equation system, the last equation Fm = 0 for m = Nx − 1
involves the quantity uNx −1 which must be replaced by D. If uNx is treated as an unknown in
the system, the last equation Fm = 0 has m = Nx and reads

FNx (u0 , . . . , uNx ) = uNx − D = 0 .

32
Similar replacement of u−1 and uNx must be done in the Jacobian for the first and last row.
When uNx is included as an unknown, the last row in the Jacobian must help implement the
condition δuNx = 0, since we assume that u contains the right Dirichlet value at the beginning of
the iteration (uNx = D), and then the Newton update should be zero for i = 0, i.e., δuNx = 0.
This also forces the right-hand side to be bi = 0, i = Nx .
We have seen, and can see from the present example, that the linear system in Newton’s
method contains all the terms present in the system that arises in the Picard iteration method.
The extra terms in Newton’s method can be multiplied by a factor such that it is easy to program
one linear system and set this factor to 0 or 1 to generate the Picard or Newton system.

4.3 Galerkin-type discretization

For a Galerkin-type discretization, which may be developed into a finite element method, we
first need to derive the variational problem. Let V be an appropriate function space with basis
functions {ψi }i∈Is . Because of the Dirichlet condition
P at x = L we require ψi (L) = 0, i ∈ Is .
The approximate solution is written as u = D + j∈Is cj ψj , where the term D can be viewed as
a boundary function needed to implement the Dirichlet condition u(L) = D.
Using Galerkin’s method, we multiply the differential equation by any v ∈ V and integrate
terms with second-order derivatives by parts:
Z L Z L Z L
0 0
α(u)u v dx + auv dx = f (u)v dx + [α(u)u0 v]L
0, ∀v ∈ V .
0 0 0
The Neumann condition at the boundary x = 0 is inserted in the boundary term:

[α(u)u0 v]L 0 0
0 = α(u(L))u (L)v(L) − α(u(0))u (0)v(0) = 0 − Cv(0) = −Cv(0) .

(Recall that since ψi (L) = 0, any linear combination v of the basis functions also vanishes at
x = L: v(L) = 0.) The variational problem is then: find u ∈ V such that
Z L Z L Z L
α(u)u0 v 0 dx + auv dx = f (u)v dx − Cv(0), ∀v ∈ V . (71)
0 0 0
algebraic equations, we note that ∀v ∈ V is equivalent with v = ψi for i ∈ Is .
To derive theP
Setting u = D + j cj ψj and sorting terms results in the linear system

! !
X Z L X
α(D + ck ψk )ψj0 ψi0 + aψi ψj dx cj
j∈Is 0 k∈Is
Z L X
= f (D + ck ψk )ψi dx − Cψi (0), i ∈ Is . (72)
0 k∈Is

Fundamental integration problem. Methods that use the Galerkin or weighted residual
method face a fundamental difficulty in nonlinear problems: how can we integrate a terms
RL P RL P
like 0 α( k ck ψk )ψi0 ψj0 dx and 0 f ( k ck ψk )ψi dx when we do not know the ck coefficients in
the argumentPof the α and f functions? We can resort to numerical integration, provided an
approximate k ck ψk can be used for the argument u in f and α. This is the approach used in
computer programs.
However, if we want to look more mathematically into the structure of the algebraic equations
generated by the finite element method in nonlinear problems, and compare such equations

33
with those arising in the finite difference method, we need techniques that enable integration of
RL P
expressions like 0 f ( k ck ψk )ψi dx by hand. Two such techniques will be shown: the group finite
element and numerical integration based on the nodes only. Both techniques are approximate,
but they allow us to see the difference equations in the finite element method. The details are
worked out in Appendix A. Some readers will prefer to dive into these symbolic calculations to
gain more understanding of nonlinear finite element equations, while others will prefer to continue
with computational algorithms (in the next two sections) rather than analysis.

4.4 Picard iteration defined from the variational form

Consider the problem (50) with the corresponding variational form (71). Our aim is to define
a Picard iteration based on this variational form without any attempt to compute integrals
symbolically as in the previous three sections. The idea in Picard iteration is to use a previously
computed u value in the nonlinear functions α(u) and f (u). Let u− be the available approximation
to u from the previous Picard iteration. The linearized variational form for Picard iteration is
then
Z L Z L
(α(u− )u0 v 0 + auv) dx = f (u− )v dx − Cv(0), ∀v ∈ V . (73)
0 0

This is a linear problem a(u, v) = L(v) with bilinear and linear forms
Z L Z L
a(u, v) = (α(u− )u0 v 0 + auv) dx, L(v) = f (u− )v dx − Cv(0) .
0 0
Make sure to distinguish the coefficient a in auv from the differential equation from the a in the
abstract bilinear form notation a(·, ·).
The linear system associated with (73) is computed in the standard way. Technically, we
0 0
are backPto solving −(α(x)u ) + au = f (x). The unknown u is sought on the form u =
B(x) + j∈Is cj ψj , with B(x) = D and ψi = ϕν(i) , ν(i) = i, and Is = {0, 1, . . . , N = Nn − 2}.

4.5 Newton’s method defined from the variational form

Application of Newton’s method to the nonlinear variational form (71) arising from the problem
(50) requires identification of the nonlinear algebraic equations Fi = 0. Although we originally
denoted the unknowns in nonlinear algebraic equations by u0 , . . . , uN , it is in the present context
most natural to have the unknowns as c0 , . . . , cN and write

Fi (c0 , . . . , cN ) = 0, i ∈ Is ,
and define the Jacobian as Ji,j = ∂Fi /∂cj for i, j ∈ Is .
The specific form of the equations Fi = 0 follows from the variational form
Z L Z L
(α(u)u0 v 0 + auv) dx = f (u)v dx − Cv(0), ∀v ∈ V,
0 0
P
by choosing v = ψi , i ∈ Is , and setting u = j∈Is cj ψj , maybe with a boundary function to
incorporate Dirichlet conditions.
With v = ψi we get
Z L
Fi = (α(u)u0 ψi0 + auψi − f (u)ψi ) dx + Cψi (0) = 0, i ∈ Is . (74)
0

34
In the differentiations leading to the Jacobian we will frequently use the results

∂u ∂ X ∂u0 ∂ X
= ck ψk = ψj , = ck ψk0 = ψj0 .
∂cj ∂cj ∂cj ∂cj
k k

The derivation of the Jacobian of (74) goes as

Z L
∂Fi ∂
Ji,j = = (α(u)u0 ψi0 + auψi − f (u)ψi ) dx
∂cj 0 ∂cj
L
∂u0 0
Z
∂u 0 ∂u ∂u
= ((α0 (u) u + α(u) )ψi + a ψi − f 0 (u) ψi ) dx
0 ∂cj ∂cj ∂cj ∂cj
Z L
= ((α0 (u)ψj u0 + α(u)ψj0 )ψi0 + aψj ψi − f 0 (u)ψj ψi ) dx
0
Z L
= (α0 (u)u0 ψi0 ψj + α(u)ψi0 ψj0 + (a − f 0 (u))ψi ψj ) dx (75)
0

One must be careful about the prime symbol as differentiation!

In α0 the derivative is with respect to the independent variable in the α function, and that
is u, so
dα
, α0 =
du
while in u0 the differentiation is with respect to x, so
du
. u0 =
dx
Similarly, f is a function of u, so f 0 means df /du.

When calculating the right-hand side vector Fi and the coefficient matrix Ji,j in the linear
system to be solved in each Newton iteration, one must use a previously computed u, denoted by
u− , for the symbol u in (74) and (75). With this notation we have

Z L
α(u− )u−0 ψi0 + (au− − f (u− ))ψi dx − Cψi (0),


Fi = i ∈ Is , (76)
0
Z L
Ji,j = (α0 (u− )u−0 ψi0 ψj + α(u− )ψi0 ψj0 + (a − f 0 (u− ))ψi ψj ) dx, i, j ∈ Is . (77)
0

These expressions can be used for any basis {ψi }i∈Is . Choosing finite element functions for ψi ,
one will normally want to compute the integral contribution cell by cell, working in a reference
cell. To this end, we restrict the integration to one cell and transform the cell to [−1, 1]. The
most recently computed approximation u− to u becomes ũ− = t ũ−1
P
t ϕ̃t (X) over the reference
element, where ũ−1
t is the value of u− at global node (or degree of freedom) q(e, t) corresponding
to the local node t (or degree of freedom). The formulas (76) and (77) then change to

35
 Z 1
F̃r(e) α(ũ− )ũ−0 ϕ̃0r + (aũ− − f (ũ− ))ϕ̃r det J dX − C ϕ̃r (0),


= (78)
−1
Z 1
J˜r,s
(e)
= (α0 (ũ− )ũ−0 ϕ̃0r ϕ̃s + α(ũ− )ϕ̃0r ϕ̃0s + (a − f 0 (ũ− ))ϕ̃r ϕ̃s ) det J dX, (79)
−1

with r, s ∈ Id runs over the local degrees of freedom.

Many finite element programs require the user to provide Fi and Ji,j . Some programs, like
FEniCS2 , are capable of automatically deriving Ji,j if Fi is specified.

Dirichlet conditions. Incorporation of the Dirichlet values by assembling contributions from

all degrees of freedom and then modifying the linear system can obviously be applied to Picard
iteration as that method involves a standard linear system. In the Newton system, however, the
unknown is a correction δu to the solution. Dirichlet conditions are implemented by inserting
them in the initial guess u− for the Newton iteration and implementing δui = 0 for all known
degrees of freedom. The manipulation of the linear system follows exactly the algorithm in the
linear problems, the only difference being that the known values are zero.

5 Multi-dimensional PDE problems

The fundamental ideas in the derivation of Fi and Ji,j in the 1D model problem are easily
generalized to multi-dimensional problems. Nevertheless, the expressions involved are slightly
different, with derivatives in x replaced by ∇, so we present some examples below in detail.

5.1 Finite element discretization

As an example, Backward Euler discretization of the PDE

ut = ∇ · (α(u)∇u) + f (u), (80)

gives the nonlinear time-discrete PDEs

un − ∆t∇ · (α(un )∇un ) − ∆tf (un ) = un−1 .

We may alternatively write this equation with u for un and u(1) for un−1 :

u − ∆t∇ · (α(u)∇u) − ∆tf (u) = u(1) .

Understand the meaning of the symbol u in various formulas!

Note that the mathematical meaning of the symbol u changes in the above equations: u(x, t)
is the exact solution of (80), un (x) is an approximation to the exact solution at t = tn , while
n
u(x) in the latter
P equation is a synonym for u . Below, this u(x) will be approximated
by a new u = k ck ψk (x) in space, and then the P actual u symbol used in the Picard and
Newton iterations is a further approximation of k ck ψk arising from the nonlinear iteration
algorithm.

2 http://fenicsproject.org

36
 Much literature reserves u for the exact solution, uses uh (x, t) for the finite element
solution that varies continuously in time, introduces perhaps unh as the approximation
of uh at time tn , arising from some time discretization, and then finally applies un,k h
for the approximation to unh in the k-th iteration of a Picard or Newton method. The
converged solution at the previous time step can be called un−1 h , but then this quantity
is an approximate solution of the nonlinear equations (at the previous time level), while
the counterpart unh is formally the exact solution of the nonlinear equations at the current
time level. The various symbols in the mathematics can in this way be clearly distinguished.
However, we favor to use u for the quantity that is most naturally called u in the code, and
that is the most recent approximation to the solution, e.g., named un,k h above. This is also
the key quantity of interest in mathematical derivations of algorithms as well. Choosing
u this way makes the most important mathematical cleaner than using more cluttered
notation as un,k
h . We therefore introduce other symbols for other versions of the unknown
function. It is most appropriate for us to say that ue (x, t) is the exact solution, un in the
equation above is the approximation to ue (x, tn ) after time discretization, and u is the
spatial approximation to un from the most recent iteration in a nonlinear iteration method.

Let us assume homogeneous Neumann conditions on the entire boundary for simplicity in the
boundary term. The variational form becomes: find u ∈ V such that
Z
(uv + ∆t α(u)∇u · ∇v − ∆tf (u)v − u(1) v) dx = 0, ∀v ∈ V . (81)
Ω
nonlinear algebraic equations follow from setting v = ψi and using the representation
The P
u = k ck ψk , which we just write as
Z
Fi = (uψi + ∆t α(u)∇u · ∇ψi − ∆tf (u)ψi − u(1) ψi ) dx . (82)
Ω
Picard iteration needs a linearization where we use the most recent approximation u− to u in α
and f :
Z
Fi ≈ F̂i = (uψi + ∆t α(u− )∇u · ∇ψi − ∆tf (u− )ψi − u(1) ψi ) dx . (83)
Ω
P
The equations F̂i = 0 are now linear and we can easily derive P a linear system j∈Is Ai,j cj = bi ,
i ∈ Is , for the unknown coefficients {ci }i∈Is by inserting u = j cj ψj . We get
Z Z
Ai,j = (ϕj ψi + ∆t α(u− )∇ϕj · ∇ψi ) dx, bi = (∆tf (u− )ψi + u(1) ψi ) dx .
Ω Ω
In Newton’s method we need to evaluate Fi with the known value u− for u:
Z
Fi ≈ F̂i = (u− ψi + ∆t α(u− )∇u− · ∇ψi − ∆tf (u− )ψi − u(1) ψi ) dx . (84)
Ω
The Jacobian is obtained by differentiating (82) and using

∂u X ∂
= ck ψk = ψj , (85)
∂cj ∂cj
k
∂∇u X ∂
= ck ∇ψk = ∇ψj . (86)
∂cj ∂cj
k

37
The result becomes

Z
∂Fi
Ji,j = = (ψj ψi + ∆t α0 (u)ψj ∇u · ∇ψi + ∆t α(u)∇ψj · ∇ψi −
∂cj Ω
∆tf 0 (u)ψj ψi ) dx . (87)

The evaluation of Ji,j as the coefficient matrix in the linear system in Newton’s method applies
the known approximation u− for u:

Z
Ji,j = (ψj ψi + ∆t α0 (u− )ψj ∇u− · ∇ψi + ∆t α(u− )∇ψj · ∇ψi −
Ω
∆tf 0 (u− )ψj ψi ) dx . (88)

Hopefully, this example also shows how convenient the notation with u and u− is: the unknown
to be computed is always u and linearization by inserting known (previously computed) values
is a matter of adding an underscore. One can take great advantage of this quick notation in
software [2].

Non-homogeneous Neumann conditions. A natural physical flux condition for the PDE
(80) takes the form of a non-homogeneous Neumann condition
∂u
− α(u)
= g, x ∈ ∂ΩN , (89)
∂n
where g is aR prescribed function and ∂ΩN is a part of the boundary of the domain Ω. From
integrating Ω ∇ · (α∇u) dx by parts, we get a boundary term
Z
∂u
α(u) v ds . (90)
∂ΩN ∂u
Inserting the condition (89) into this term results in an integral over prescribed values:
Z
− gv ds .
∂ΩN

The nonlinearity in the α(u) coefficient condition (89) therefore does not contribute with a
nonlinearity in the variational form.

Robin conditions. Heat conduction problems often apply a kind of Newton’s cooling law, also
known as a Robin condition, at the boundary:
∂u
− α(u) = h(u)(u − Ts (t)), x ∈ ∂ΩR , (91)
∂u
where h(u) is a heat transfer coefficient between the body (Ω) and its surroundings, Ts is the
temperature of the surroundings, and ∂ΩR is a part of the boundary where this Robin condition
applies. The boundary integral (90) now becomes
Z
h(u)(u − Ts (T ))v ds .
∂ΩR

In many physical applications, h(u) can be taken as constant, and then the boundary term
is linear in u, otherwise it is nonlinear and contributes to the Jacobian in a Newton method.

38
Linearization in a Picard method will typically use a known value in h, but keep the u in u − Ts
as unknown: h(u− )(u − Ts (t)). Exercise 15 asks you to carry out the details.

5.2 Finite difference discretization

A typical diffusion equation

ut = ∇ · (α(u)∇u) + f (u),
can be discretized by (e.g.) a Backward Euler scheme, which in 2D can be written
x y
[Dt− u = Dx α(u) Dx u + Dy α(u) Dy u + f (u)]ni,j .
We do not dive into the details of handling boundary conditions now. Dirichlet and Neumann
conditions are handled as in a corresponding linear, variable-coefficient diffusion problems.
Writing the scheme out, putting the unknown values on the left-hand side and known values
on the right-hand side, and introducing ∆x = ∆y = h to save some writing, one gets

∆t 1
uni,j − ( (α(uni,j ) + α(uni+1,j ))(uni+1,j − uni,j )
h2 2
1
− (α(uni−1,j ) + α(uni,j ))(uni,j − uni−1,j )
2
1
+ (α(uni,j ) + α(uni,j+1 ))(uni,j+1 − uni,j )
2
1
− (α(uni,j−1 ) + α(uni,j ))(uni,j − uni−1,j−1 )) − ∆tf (uni,j ) = un−1
i,j
2
This defines a nonlinear algebraic system on the form A(u)u = b(u).

Picard iteration. The most recently computed values u− of un can be used in α and f for a
Picard iteration, or equivalently, we solve A(u− )u = b(u− ). The result is a linear system of the
same type as arising from ut = ∇ · (α(x)∇u) + f (x, t).
The Picard iteration scheme can also be expressed in operator notation:
x y
[Dt− u = Dx α(u− ) Dx u + Dy α(u− ) Dy u + f (u− )]ni,j .

Newton’s method. As always, Newton’s method is technically more involved than Picard
iteration. We first define the nonlinear algebraic equations to be solved, drop the superscript n
(use u for un ), and introduce u(1) for un−1 :

∆t
Fi,j = ui,j − (
h2
1
(α(ui,j ) + α(ui+1,j ))(ui+1,j − ui,j )−
2
1
(α(ui−1,j ) + α(ui,j ))(ui,j − ui−1,j )+
2
1
(α(ui,j ) + α(ui,j+1 ))(ui,j+1 − ui,j )−
2
1 (1)
(α(ui,j−1 ) + α(ui,j ))(ui,j − ui−1,j−1 )) − ∆t f (ui,j ) − ui,j = 0 .
2

39
It is convenient to work with two indices i and j in 2D finite difference discretizations, but it
complicates the derivation of the Jacobian, which then gets four indices. (Make sure you really
understand the 1D version of this problem as treated in Section 4.1.) The left-hand expression of
an equation Fi,j = 0 is to be differentiated with respect to each of the unknowns ur,s (recall that
this is short notation for unr,s ), r ∈ Ix , s ∈ Iy :
∂Fi,j
Ji,j,r,s = .
∂ur,s
The Newton system to be solved in each iteration can be written as
X X
Ji,j,r,s δur,s = −Fi,j , i ∈ Ix , j ∈ Iy .
r∈Ix s∈Iy

Given i and j, only a few r and s indices give nonzero contribution to the Jacobian since
Fi,j contains ui±1,j , ui,j±1 , and ui,j . This means that Ji,j,r,s has nonzero contributions only if
r = i ± 1, s = j ± 1, as well as r = i and s = j. The corresponding terms in Ji,j,r,s are Ji,j,i−1,j ,
J
P P , Ji,j,i,j−1 , Ji,j,i,j+1 , and Ji,j,i,j . Therefore, the left-hand side of the Newton system,
i,j,i+1,j
r s Ji,j,r,s δur,s collapses to

Ji,j,r,s δur,s = Ji,j,i,j δui,j + Ji,j,i−1,j δui−1,j + Ji,j,i+1,j δui+1,j + Ji,j,i,j−1 δui,j−1
+ Ji,j,i,j+1 δui,j+1

The specific derivatives become

∂Fi,j
Ji,j,i−1,j =
∂ui−1,j
∆t 0
= (α (ui−1,j )(ui,j − ui−1,j ) + α(ui−1,j )(−1)),
h2
∂Fi,j
Ji,j,i+1,j =
∂ui+1,j
∆t
= (−α0 (ui+1,j )(ui+1,j − ui,j ) − α(ui−1,j )),
h2
∂Fi,j
Ji,j,i,j−1 =
∂ui,j−1
∆t 0
= (α (ui,j−1 )(ui,j − ui,j−1 ) + α(ui,j−1 )(−1)),
h2
∂Fi,j
Ji,j,i,j+1 =
∂ui,j+1
∆t
= (−α0 (ui,j+1 )(ui,j+1 − ui,j ) − α(ui,j−1 )) .
h2
The Ji,j,i,j entry has a few more terms and is left as an exercise. Inserting the most recent
approximation u− for u in the J and F formulas and then forming Jδu = −F gives the linear
system to be solved in each Newton iteration. Boundary conditions will affect the formulas when
any of the indices coincide with a boundary value of an index.

40
5.3 Continuation methods
Picard iteration or Newton’s method may diverge when solving PDEs with severe nonlinearities.
Relaxation with ω < 1 may help, but in highly nonlinear problems it can be necessary to
introduce a continuation parameter Λ in the problem: Λ = 0 gives a version of the problem
that is easy to solve, while Λ = 1 is the target problem. The idea is then to increase Λ in steps,
Λ0 = 0, Λ1 < · · · < Λn = 1, and use the solution from the problem with Λi−1 as initial guess for
the iterations in the problem corresponding to Λi .
The continuation method is easiest to understand through an example. Suppose we intend to
solve

−∇ · (||∇u||q ∇u) = f,
which is an equation modeling the flow of a non-Newtonian fluid through a channel or pipe.
For q = 0 we have the Poisson equation (corresponding to a Newtonian fluid) and the problem
is linear. A typical value for pseudo-plastic fluids may be qn = −0.8. We can introduce the
continuation parameter Λ ∈ [0, 1] such that q = qn Λ. Let {Λ` }n`=0 be the sequence of Λ values in
[0, 1], with corresponding q values {q` }n`=0 . We can then solve a sequence of problems

−∇ · ||∇u` ||q` ∇u` = f,

` = 0, . . . , n,
where the initial guess for iterating on u` is the previously computed solution u`−1 . If a particular
Λ` leads to convergence problems, one may try a smaller increase in Λ: Λ∗ = 12 (Λ`−1 + Λ` ), and
repeat halving the step in Λ until convergence is reestablished.

6 Exercises
Problem 1: Determine if equations are nonlinear or not
Classify each term in the following equations as linear or nonlinear. Assume that u, u, and p are
unknown functions and that all other symbols are known quantities.

1. mu00 + β|u0 |u0 + cu = F (t)

2. ut = αuxx
3. utt = c2 ∇2 u
4. ut = ∇ · (α(u)∇u) + f (x, y)

5. ut + f (u)x = 0
6. ut + u · ∇u = −∇p + r∇2 u, ∇ · u = 0 (u is a vector field)
7. u0 = f (u, t)

8. ∇2 u = λeu

Filename: nonlinear_vs_linear.

41
Exercise 2: Derive and investigate a generalized logistic model
The logistic model for population growth is derived by assuming a nonlinear growth rate,

u0 = a(u)u, u(0) = I, (92)

and the logistic model arises from the simplest possible choice of a(u): r(u) = %(1 − u/M ), where
M is the maximum value of u that the environment can sustain, and % is the growth under
unlimited access to resources (as in the beginning when u is small). The idea is that a(u) ∼ %
when u is small and that a(t) → 0 as u → M .
An a(u) that generalizes the linear choice is the polynomial form

a(u) = %(1 − u/M )p , (93)

where p > 0 is some real number.
a) Formulate a Forward Euler, Backward Euler, and a Crank-Nicolson scheme for (92).

Hint. Use a geometric mean approximation in the Crank-Nicolson scheme: [a(u)u]n+1/2 ≈

a(un )un+1 .
b) Formulate Picard and Newton iteration for the Backward Euler scheme in a).
c) Implement the numerical solution methods from a) and b). Use logistic.py3 to compare
the case p = 1 and the choice (93).
d) Implement unit tests that check the asymptotic limit of the solutions: u → M as t → ∞.

Hint. You need to experiment to find what “infinite time” is (increases substantially with p)
and what the appropriate tolerance is for testing the asymptotic limit.
e) Perform experiments with Newton and Picard iteration for the models (93) and (??). See
how sensitive the number of iterations is to ∆t and p.
Filename: logistic_p.

Problem 3: Experience the behavior of Newton’s method

The program Newton_demo.py4 illustrates graphically each step in Newton’s method and is run
like
Terminal

Terminal> python Newton_demo.py f dfdx x0 xmin xmax

2
Use this program to investigate potential problems with Newton’s method when solving e−0.5x cos(πx) =
0. Try a starting point x0 = 0.8 and x0 = 0.85 and watch the different behavior. Just run
Terminal

Terminal> python Newton_demo.py ’0.2 + exp(-0.5*x**2)*cos(pi*x)’ \

’-x*exp(-x**2)*cos(pi*x) - pi*exp(-x**2)*sin(pi*x)’ \
0.85 -3 3

and repeat with 0.85 replaced by 0.8.

3 http://tinyurl.com/nm5587k/nonlin/logistic.py
4 http://tinyurl.com/nm5587k/nonlin/Newton_demo.py

42
Problem 4: Compute the Jacobian of a 2 × 2 system
Write up the system (18)-(19) in the form F (u) = 0, F = (F0 , F1 ), u = (u0 , u1 ), and compute the
Jacobian Ji,j = ∂Fi /∂uj .

Problem 5: Solve nonlinear equations arising from a vibration ODE

Consider a nonlinear vibration problem

mu00 + bu0 |u0 | + s(u) = F (t), (94)

where m > 0 is a constant, b ≥ 0 is a constant, s(u) a possibly nonlinear function of u, and F (t)
is a prescribed function. Such models arise from Newton’s second law of motion in mechanical
vibration problems where s(u) is a spring or restoring force, mu00 is mass times acceleration, and
bu0 |u0 | models water or air drag.
a) Rewrite the equation for u as a system of two first-order ODEs, and discretize this system by a
1 1
Crank-Nicolson (centered difference) method. With v = u0 , we get a nonlinear term v n+ 2 |v n+ 2 |.
1
Use a geometric average for v n+ 2 .
b) Formulate a Picard iteration method to solve the system of nonlinear algebraic equations.
c) Explain how to apply Newton’s method to solve the nonlinear equations at each time level.
Derive expressions for the Jacobian and the right-hand side in each Newton iteration.
Filename: nonlin_vib.

Exercise 6: Find the truncation error of arithmetic mean of products

In Section 3.4 we introduce alternative arithmetic means of a product. Say the product is P (t)Q(t)
evaluated at t = tn+ 12 . The exact value is
1 1 1
[P Q]n+ 2 = P n+ 2 Qn+ 2
1
There are two obvious candidates for evaluating [P Q]n+ 2 as a mean of values of P and Q at tn
and tn+1 . Either we can take the arithmetic mean of each factor P and Q,
11 n 1
[P Q]n+ 2 ≈ (P + P n+1 ) (Qn + Qn+1 ), (95)
2 2
or we can take the arithmetic mean of the product P Q:
1 1 n n
[P Q]n+ 2 ≈ (P Q + P n+1 Qn+1 ) . (96)
2
The arithmetic average of P (tn+ 21 ) is O(∆t2 ):
1 n
P (tn+ 12 ) =(P + P n+1 ) + O(∆t2 ) .
2
A fundamental question is whether (95) and (96) have different orders of accuracy in ∆t = tn+1 −tn .
To investigate this question, expand quantities at tn+1 and tn in Taylor series around tn+ 21 , and
1
subtract the true value [P Q]n+ 2 from the approximations (95) and (96) to see what the order of
the error terms are.

43
Hint. You may explore sympy for carrying out the tedious calculations. A general Taylor series
expansion of P (t + 12 ∆t) around t involving just a general function P (t) can be created as follows:

>>> from sympy import *

>>> t, dt = symbols(’t dt’)
>>> P = symbols(’P’, cls=Function)
>>> P(t).series(t, 0, 4)
P(0) + t*Subs(Derivative(P(_x), _x), (_x,), (0,)) +
t**2*Subs(Derivative(P(_x), _x, _x), (_x,), (0,))/2 +
t**3*Subs(Derivative(P(_x), _x, _x, _x), (_x,), (0,))/6 + O(t**4)
>>> P_p = P(t).series(t, 0, 4).subs(t, dt/2)
>>> P_p
P(0) + dt*Subs(Derivative(P(_x), _x), (_x,), (0,))/2 +
dt**2*Subs(Derivative(P(_x), _x, _x), (_x,), (0,))/8 +
dt**3*Subs(Derivative(P(_x), _x, _x, _x), (_x,), (0,))/48 + O(dt**4)

The error of the arithmetic mean, 21 (P (− 12 ∆t) + P (− 12 ∆t)) for t = 0 is then

>>> P_m = P(t).series(t, 0, 4).subs(t, -dt/2)

>>> mean = Rational(1,2)*(P_m + P_p)
>>> error = simplify(expand(mean) - P(0))
>>> error
dt**2*Subs(Derivative(P(_x), _x, _x), (_x,), (0,))/8 + O(dt**4)

Use these examples to investigate the error of (95) and (96) for n = 0. (Choosing n = 0 is
necessary for not making the expressions too complicated for sympy, but there is of course no
lack of generality by using n = 0 rather than an arbitrary n - the main point is the product and
addition of Taylor series.)
Filename: product_arith_mean.

Problem 7: Newton’s method for linear problems

Suppose we have a linear system F (u) = Au − b = 0. Apply Newton’s method to this system,
and show that the method converges in one iteration. Filename: Newton_linear.

Exercise 8: Discretize a 1D problem with a nonlinear coefficient

We consider the problem

((1 + u2 )u0 )0 = 1, x ∈ (0, 1), u(0) = u(1) = 0 . (97)

a) Discretize (97) by a centered finite difference method on a uniform mesh.
b) Discretize (97) by a finite element method with P1 elements of equal length. Use the
Trapezoidal method to compute all integrals. Set up the resulting matrix system in symbolic
form such that the equations can be compared with those in a).
Filename: nonlin_1D_coeff_discretize.

Exercise 9: Linearize a 1D problem with a nonlinear coefficient

We have a two-point boundary value problem

((1 + u2 )u0 )0 = 1, x ∈ (0, 1), u(0) = u(1) = 0 . (98)

a) Construct a Picard iteration method for (98) without discretizing in space.

44
b) Apply Newton’s method to (98) without discretizing in space.
c) Discretize (98) by a centered finite difference scheme. Construct a Picard method for the
resulting system of nonlinear algebraic equations.
d) Discretize (98) by a centered finite difference scheme. Define the system of nonlinear algebraic
equations, calculate the Jacobian, and set up Newton’s method for solving the system.
Filename: nonlin_1D_coeff_linearize.

Problem 10: Finite differences for the 1D Bratu problem

We address the so-called Bratu problem

u00 + λeu = 0, x ∈ (0, 1), u(0) = u(1) = 0, (99)

where λ is a given parameter and u is a function of x. This is a widely used model problem for
studying numerical methods for nonlinear differential equations. The problem (99) has an exact
solution

cosh((x − 12 )θ/2)
 
ue (x) = −2 ln ,
cosh(θ/4)
where θ solves
√
θ= 2λ cosh(θ/4) .
There are two solutions of (99) for 0 < λ < λc and no solution for λ > λc . For λ = λc there is
one unique solution. The critical value λc solves
p 1
1= 2λc sinh(θ(λc )/4) .
4
A numerical value is λc = 3.513830719.
a) Discretize (99) by a centered finite difference method.
b) Set up the nonlinear equations Fi (u0 , u1 , . . . , uNx ) = 0 from a). Calculate the associated
Jacobian.
c) Implement a solver that can compute u(x) using Newton’s method. Plot the error as a function
of x in each iteration.
d) Investigate whether Newton’s method gives second-order convergence by computing ||ue −
u||/||ue − u− ||2 in each iteration, where u is solution in the current iteration and u− is the solution
in the previous iteration.
Filename: nonlin_1D_Bratu_fd.

Problem 11: Integrate functions of finite element expansions

We shall investigate integrals on the form
Z L X
f( uk ϕk (x))ϕi (x) dx, (100)
0 k

where ϕi (x) are P1 finite element basis functions and uk are unknown coefficients, more precisely
the values of the unknown function u at nodes xk . We introduce a node numbering that goes

45
from left to right and also that all cells have the same length h. Given i, the integral only gets
contributions from [xi−1 , xi+1 ]. On this interval ϕk (x) = 0 for k < i − 1 and k > i + 1, so only
three basis functions will contribute:
X
uk ϕk (x) = ui−1 ϕi−1 (x) + ui ϕi (x) + ui+1 ϕi+1 (x) .
k

The integral (100) now takes the simplified form

Z xi+1
f (ui−1 ϕi−1 (x) + ui ϕi (x) + ui+1 ϕi+1 (x))ϕi (x) dx .
xi−1

Split this integral in two integrals over cell L (left), [xi−1 , xi ], and cell R (right), [xi , xi+1 ]. Over
cell L, u simplifies to ui−1 ϕi−1 + ui ϕi (since ϕi+1 = 0 on this cell), and over cell R, u simplifies
to ui ϕi + ui+1 ϕi+1 . Make a sympy program that can compute the integral and write it out as a
difference equation. Give the f (u) formula on the command line. Try out f (u) = u2 , sin u, exp u.

Hint. Introduce symbols u_i, u_im1, and u_ip1 for ui , ui−1 , and ui+1 , respectively, and similar
symbols for xi , xi−1 , and xi+1 . Find formulas for the basis functions on each of the two cells, make
expressions for u on the two cells, integrate over each cell, expand the answer and simplify. You
can ask sympy for LATEX code and render it either by creating a LATEX document and compiling
it to a PDF document or by using http://latex.codecogs.com to display LATEX formulas in a
web page. Here are some appropriate Python statements for the latter purpose:

from sympy import *

...
# expr_i holdes the integral as a sympy expression
latex_code = latex(expr_i, mode=’plain’)
# Replace u_im1 sympy symbol name by latex symbol u_{i-1}
latex_code = latex_code.replace(’im1’, ’{i-1}’)
# Replace u_ip1 sympy symbol name by latex symbol u_{i+1}
latex_code = latex_code.replace(’ip1’, ’{i+1}’)
# Escape (quote) latex_code so it can be sent as HTML text
import cgi
html_code = cgi.escape(latex_code)
# Make a file with HTML code for displaying the LaTeX formula
f = open(’tmp.html’, ’w’)
# Include an image that can be clicked on to yield a new
# page with an interactive editor and display area where the
# formula can be further edited
text = """
<a href="http://www.codecogs.com/eqnedit.php?latex=%(html_code)s"
target="_blank">
<img src="http://latex.codecogs.com/gif.latex?%(html_code)s"
title="%(latex_code)s"/>
</a>
""" % vars()
f.write(text)
f.close()

The formula is displayed by loading tmp.html into a web browser.

Filename: fu_fem_int.

Problem 12: Finite elements for the 1D Bratu problem

We address the same 1D Bratu problem as described in Problem 10.
a) Discretize (12) by a finite element method using a uniform mesh with P1 elements. Use a
group finite element method for the eu term.

46
b) Set up the nonlinear equations Fi (u0 , u1 , . . . , uNx ) = 0 from a). Calculate the associated
Jacobian.
Filename: nonlin_1D_Bratu_fe.

Exercise 13: Discretize a nonlinear 1D heat conduction PDE by finite

differences
We address the 1D heat conduction PDE

%c(T )Tt = (k(T )Tx )x ,

for x ∈ [0, L], where % is the density of the solid material, c(T ) is the heat capacity, T is the
temperature, and k(T ) is the heat conduction coefficient. T (x, 0) = I(x), and ends are subject to
a cooling law:

k(T )Tx |x=0 = h(T )(T − Ts ), −k(T )Tx |x=L = h(T )(T − Ts ),
where h(T ) is a heat transfer coefficient and Ts is the given surrounding temperature.
a) Discretize this PDE in time using either a Backward Euler or Crank-Nicolson scheme.
b) Formulate a Picard iteration method for the time-discrete problem (i.e., an iteration method
before discretizing in space).
c) Formulate a Newton method for the time-discrete problem in b).
d) Discretize the PDE by a finite difference method in space. Derive the matrix and right-hand
side of a Picard iteration method applied to the space-time discretized PDE.
e) Derive the matrix and right-hand side of a Newton method applied to the discretized PDE in
d).
Filename: nonlin_1D_heat_FD.

Exercise 14: Use different symbols for different approximations of the

solution
The symbol u has several meanings, depending on the context, as briefly mentioned in Section 5.1.
Go through the derivation of the Picard iteration method in that section and use different symbols
for all the different approximations of u:

• ue (x, t) for the exact solution of the PDE problem

• ue (x)n for the exact solution after time discretization

• un (x) for the spatially discrete solution j cj ψj

P

• un,k for approximation in Picard/Newton iteration no k to un (x)

Filename: nonlin_heat_FE_usymbols.

47
Exercise 15: Derive Picard and Newton systems from a variational form
We study the multi-dimensional heat conduction PDE

%c(T )Tt = ∇ · (k(T )∇T )

in a spatial domain Ω, with a nonlinear Robin boundary condition
∂T
−k(T ) = h(T )(T − Ts (t)),
∂n
at the boundary ∂Ω. The primary unknown is the temperature T , % is the density of the solid
material, c(T ) is the heat capacity, k(T ) is the heat conduction, h(T ) is a heat transfer coefficient,
and Ts (T ) is a possibly time-dependent temperature of the surroundings.
a) Use a Backward Euler or Crank-Nicolson time discretization and derive the variational form
for the spatial problem to be solved at each time level.
b) Define a Picard iteration method from the variational form at a time level.
c) Derive expressions for the matrix and the right-hand side of the equation system that arises
from applying Newton’s method to the variational form at a time level.
d) Apply the Backward Euler or Crank-Nicolson scheme in time first. Derive a Newton method
at the PDE level. Make a variational form of the resulting PDE at a time level.
Filename: nonlin_heat_FE.

Exercise 16: Derive algebraic equations for nonlinear 1D heat conduc-

tion
We consider the same problem as in Exercise 15, but restricted to one space dimension: Ω = [0, L].
Simplify the boundary condition to Tx = 0 (i.e., h(T ) = 0). Use a uniform finite element mesh
of P1 elements, the group finite element method, and the Trapezoidal rule for integration at
the nodes to derive symbolic expressions for the algebraic equations arising from this diffusion
problem. Filename: nonlin_1D_heat_FE.

Exercise 17: Differentiate a highly nonlinear term

The operator ∇ · (α(u)∇u) with α(u) = |∇u|q appears in several physical problems, especially
flow of Non-Newtonian fluids. The expression |∇u| is defined as the Euclidean norm of a vector:
2
|∇u|P = ∇u · ∇u. In a Newton method one has to carry out the differentiation ∂α(u)/∂cj , for
u = k ck ψk . Show that
∂
|∇u|q = q|∇u|q−2 ∇u · ∇ψj .
∂uj
Filename: nonlin_differentiate.

Exercise 18: Crank-Nicolson for a nonlinear 3D diffusion equation

Redo Section 5.2 when a Crank-Nicolson scheme is used to discretize the equations in time and
the problem is formulated for three spatial dimensions.

48
Hint. Express the Jacobian as Ji,j,k,r,s,t = ∂Fi,j,k /∂ur,s,t and observe, as in the 2D case, that
Ji,j,k,r,s,t is very sparse: Ji,j,k,r,s,t 6= 0 only for r = i ± i, s = j ± 1, and t = k ± 1 as well as r = i,
s = j, and t = k.
Filename: nonlin_heat_FD_CN_2D.

Exercise 19: Find the sparsity of the Jacobian

Consider a typical nonlinear Laplace term like ∇ · α(u)∇u discretized by centered finite differences.
Explain why the Jacobian corresponding to this term has the same sparsity pattern as the matrix
associated with the corresponding linear term α∇2 u.

Hint. Set up the unknowns that enter the difference equation at a point (i, j) in 2D or (i, j, k) in
3D, and identify the nonzero entries of the Jacobian that can arise from such a type of difference
equation.
Filename: nonlin_sparsity_Jacobian.

Problem 20: Investigate a 1D problem with a continuation method

Flow of a pseudo-plastic power-law fluid between two flat plates can be modeled by
 n−1 !
d  du  du
µ0   = −β, u0 (0) = 0, u(H) = 0,
dx dx dx
where β > 0 and µ0 > 0 are constants. A target value of n may be n = 0.2.
a) Formulate a Picard iteration method directly for the differential equation problem.
b) Perform a finite difference discretization of the problem in each Picard iteration. Implement a
solver that can compute u on a mesh. Verify that the solver gives an exact solution for n = 1 on
a uniform mesh regardless of the cell size.
c) Given a sequence of decreasing n values, solve the problem for each n using the solution for
the previous n as initial guess for the Picard iteration. This is called a continuation method.
Experiment with n = (1, 0.6, 0.2) and n = (1, 0.9, 0.8, . . . , 0.2) and make a table of the number of
Picard iterations versus n.
d) Derive a Newton method at the differential equation level and discretize the resulting linear
equations in each Newton iteration with the finite difference method.
e) Investigate if Newton’s method has better convergence properties than Picard iteration, both
in combination with a continuation method.

References
[1] C. T. Kelley. Iterative Methods for Linear and Nonlinear Equations. SIAM, 1995.
[2] M. Mortensen, H. P. Langtangen, and G. N. Wells. A FEniCS-based programming framework
for modeling turbulent flow by the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations. Advances in
Water Resources, 34(9), 2011.

49
A Symbolic nonlinear finite element equations
The integrals in nonlinear finite element equations are computed by numerical integration rules in
computer programs, so the formulas for the variational form are directly transferred to numbers.
It is also of interest to understand the nature of the system of difference equations that arises from
the finite element method in nonlinear problems and to compare with corresponding expressions
arising from finite difference discretization. We shall dive into this problem here. To see the
structure of the difference equations implied by the finite element method, we have to find
symbolic expressions for the integrals, and this is extremely difficult since the integrals involve
the unknown function in nonlinear problems. However, there are some techniques that allow us
to approximate the integrals and work out symbolic formulas that can be compared with their
finite difference counterparts.
We shall address the 1D model problem (50) from the beginning of Section 4. The finite
difference discretization is shown in Section 4.1, while the variational form based on Galerkin’s
method is developed in Section 4.3. We build directly on formulas developed in the latter section.

A.1 Finite element basis functions

Introduction of finite element basis functions ϕi means setting

ψi = ϕν(i) , i ∈ Is ,
where degree of freedom number ν(i) in the mesh corresponds to unknown number i (ci ).
In the present example, we use all the basis functions except the last at i = Nn − 1, i.e.,
Is = {0, . . . , Nn − 2}, and ν(j) = j. The expansion of u can be taken as
X
u=D+ cj ϕν(j) ,
j∈Is
P
but it is more common in a finite element context to use a boundary function B = j∈Ib Uj ϕj ,
where Uj is prescribed Dirichlet condition for degree of freedom number j and Uj is the corre-
sponding value.
X
u = DϕNn −1 + cj ϕν(j) .
j∈Is

In the general case with u prescribed as Uj at some nodes j ∈ Ib , we set

X X
u= Uj ϕj + cj ϕν(j) ,
j∈Ib j∈Is

where cj = u(xν(j) ). That is, ν(j) maps unknown number j to the corresponding node number
ν(j) such that cj = u(xν(j) ).

A.2 The group finite element method

P
Finite element approximation of functions of u. Since we already expand u as j ϕj u(xj ),
we may use the same approximation for other functions as well. For example,
X
f (u) ≈ f (xj )ϕj ,
j

50
where f (xj ) is the value of f at node j. Since f is a function of u, f (xj ) = f (u(xj )). Introducing
uj as a short form for u(xj ), we can write
X
f (u) ≈ f (uj )ϕj .
j

This approximation is known as the group finite element method or the product approximation
technique. The index j runs over all node numbers in the mesh.
The principal advantages of the group finite element method are two-fold:

1. Complicated nonlinear expressions can be simplified to increase the efficiency of numerical

computations.
2. One can derive symbolic forms of the difference equations arising from the finite element
method in nonlinear problems. The symbolic form is useful for comparing finite element
and finite difference equations of nonlinear differential equation problems.

Below, we shall explore point 2 to see exactly how the finite element method creates more complex
expressions in the resulting linear system (the difference equations) that the finite difference
method does. It turns out R that it is very difficult to see what kind of terms in the difference
equations that arise from f (u)ϕi dx without using the group finite element method or numerical
integration utilizing the nodes only. R
Note, however, that an expression like f (u)ϕi dx causes no problems in a computer program
as the integral is calculated by numerical integration using an existing approximation of u in f (u)
such that the integrand can be sampled at any spatial point.

Simplified problem. Our aim now is to derive symbolic expressions for the difference equations
arising from the finite element method in nonlinear problems and compare the expressions with
those arising in the finite difference method. To this end, let us simplify the model problem and
set a = 0, α = 1, f (u) = u2 , and have Neumann conditions at both ends such that we get a very
simple nonlinear problem −u00 = u2 , u0 (0) = 1, u0 (L) = 0. The variational form is then
Z L Z L
0 0
u v dx = u2 v dx − v(0), ∀v ∈ V .
0 0

The term with u0 v 0 is well known so the only new feature is the term u2 v dx.
R

To make the distance from finite element equations

P to finite difference equations as short as
possible, we shall substitute cj in the sum u = j cj ϕj by uj = u(xj ) since cj is the P value of u
at node j. (In the more general case with Dirichlet conditions as well, we have a sum j cj ϕν(j)
where cj is replaced by u(x
P ν(j) )). We can then introduce some other counter k such that it is
meaningful
P to write u = k uk ϕk , where k runs over appropriate node numbers.) The quantity
uj in j uj ϕj is the same as u at mesh point number j in the finite difference method, which is
commonly denoted uj .
R
Integrating nonlinear
P functions. Consider the term u2 v dx in the variational formulation
with v = ϕi and u = k ϕk uk :
Z L X
( uk ϕk )2 ϕi dx .
0 k

Evaluating this integral for P1 elements (see Problem 11) results in the expression

51
 h 2
(u + 2ui (ui−1 + ui+1 ) + 6u2i + u2i+1 ),
12 i−1
to be compared with the simple value u2i that would arise in a finite difference discretization when
RL
u2 is sampled at mesh point xi . More complicated f (u) functions in the integral 0 f (u)ϕi dx
give rise to much more lengthy expressions, if it is possible to carry out the integral symbolically
at all.

Application of the group finite element method. Let use the group finite element method
to derive the terms in the difference equation corresponding to f (u) in the differential equation.
We have
Z L Z L X !
X Z L
f (u)ϕi dx ≈ ( ϕj f (uj ))ϕi dx = ϕi ϕj dx f (uj ) .
0 0 j j 0
R
We recognize this expression as the mass matrix M , arising from ϕi ϕj dx, times the vector
f = (f (u0 ), f (u1 ), . . . , ): M f . The associated terms in the difference equations are, for P1
elements,
h
(f (ui−1 ) + 4f (ui ) + f (ui+1 )) .
6
Occasionally, we want to interpret this expression in terms of finite differences, and to this end a
rewrite of this expression is convenient:

h h2
(f (ui−1 ) + 4f (ui ) + f (ui+1 )) = h[f (u) − Dx Dx f (u)]i .
6 6
That is, the finite element treatment of f (u) (when using a group finite element method) gives the
same term as in a finite difference approach, f (ui ), minus a diffusion term which is the 2nd-order
discretization of 16 h2 f 00 (xi ).
We may lump the mass matrix through integration with the Trapezoidal rule so that M
becomes diagonal in the finite element method. In that case the f (u) term in the differential
equation gives rise to a single term hf (ui ), just as in the finite difference method.

A.3 Numerical integration of nonlinear terms by hand

R
Let us reconsider a term f (u)v dx as treated in the previous section, but now we want to
integrate this term numerically. Such an approach can lead to easy-to-interpret formulas if we
apply a numerical integration rule that samples the integrand at the node points xi only, because
at such points, ϕj (xi ) = 0 if j 6= i, which leads to great simplifications.
The term in question takes the form
Z L X
f( uk ϕk )ϕi dx .
0 k
P
Evaluation of the integrand at a node x` leads to a collapse of the sum k uk ϕk to one term
because
X
uk ϕk (x` ) = u` .
k

52
 X
f( uk ϕk (x` )) ϕi (x` ) = f (u` )δi` ,
| {z } | {z }
k
δk` δi`

where we have used the Kronecker delta: δij = 0 if i 6= j and δij = 1 if i = j.

Considering the Trapezoidal rule for integration, where the integration points are the nodes,
we have
Z L X n −1
NX
f( uk ϕk (x))ϕi (x) dx ≈ h f (u` )δi` − C = hf (ui ) .
0 k `=0

This is the same representation of the f term as in the finite difference method. The term C
contains the evaluations of the integrand at the ends with weight 12 , needed to make a true
Trapezoidal rule:
h h
C= f (u0 )ϕi (0) + f (uNn −1 )ϕi (L) .
2 2
The answer hf (ui ) must therefore be multiplied by 12 if i = 0 or i = Nn − 1. Note that C = 0 for
i = 1, . . . , Nn − 2.
One can alternatively use the Trapezoidal rule on the reference cell and assemble the contri-
butions. It is a bit more labor in this context, but working on the reference cell is safer as that
approach is guaranteed to handle discontinuous derivatives of finite element functions correctly
(not important in this particular example), while the rule above was derived with the assumption
that f is continuous at the integration points.
The conclusion is that it suffices to use the Trapezoidal rule if one wants to derive the
difference equations in the finite element method and make them similar to those arising in the
finite difference method. The Trapezoidal rule has sufficient accuracy for P1 elements, but for P2
elements one should turn to Simpson’s rule.

A.4 Finite element discretization of a variable coefficient Laplace term

Turning back to the model problem (50), it remains to calculate the contribution of the (αu0 )0 and
boundary terms to the difference equations. The integral in the variational form corresponding to
(αu0 )0 is
Z L X
α( ck ϕk )ϕ0i ϕ0j dx .
0 k
P
Numerical integration utilizing a value of k ck ϕk from a previous iteration must in general be
used to compute the integral. Now our aim is to integrate symbolically, as much as we can, to
obtain some insight into how the finite element method approximates this term. To be able to
derive symbolic expressions, we must either turn to the group finite element method or numerical
integration in the node points. Finite element basis functions ϕi are now used.
P
Group finite element method. We set α(u) ≈ k α(uk )ϕk , and then we write
Z L X XZ L X
α( ck ϕk )ϕ0i ϕ0j dx ≈ ( ϕk ϕ0i ϕ0j dx)α(uk ) = Li,j,k α(uk ) .
0 k k |0 k
{z }
Li,j,k

53
Further calculations are now easiest to carry out in the reference cell. With P1 elements we
can compute Li,j,k for the two k values that are relevant on the reference cell. Turning to local
indices, one gets
 
(e) 1 1 −1
Lr,s,t = , t = 0, 1,
2h −1 1
where r, s, t = 0, 1 are indices over local degrees of freedom in the reference cell (i = q(e, r),
P P1 (e)
j = q(e, s), and k = q(e, t)). The sum k Li,j,k α(uk ) at the cell level becomes t=0 Lr,s,t α(ũt ),
where ũt is u(xq(e,t) ), i.e., the value of u at local node number t in cell number e. The element
matrix becomes
 
1 1 1 −1
(α(ũ0 ) + α(ũ1 )) . (101)
2 h −1 1
As usual, we employ a left-to-right numbering of cells and nodes. Row number i in the global
matrix gets contributions from the first row of the element matrix in cell i and the last row of
the element matrix in cell i − 1. In cell number i − 1 the sum α(ũ0 ) + α(ũ1 ) corresponds to
α(ui−1 ) + α(ui ). The same sum becomes α(ui ) + α(ui+1 ) in cell number i. We can with this
insight assemble the contributions to row number i in the global matrix:
1
(−(α(ui−1 ) + α(ui )), α(ui−1 ) + 2α(ui ) + α(ui+1 ), −(α(ui ) + α(ui+1 ))) .
2h
Multiplying by the vector of unknowns ui results in a formula that can be arranged to
1 1 1
−
( (α(ui ) + α(ui+1 ))(ui+1 − ui ) − (α(ui−1 ) + α(ui ))(ui − ui−1 )), (102)
h 2 2
which is nothing but the standard finite difference discretization of −(α(u)u0 )0 with an arithmetic
mean of α(u) (and the usual factor h because of the integration in the finite element method).

Numerical integration at the nodes. Instead of using the group finite element method and
RL P
exact integration we can turn to the Trapezoidal rule for computing 0 α( k uk ϕk )ϕ0i ϕ0j dx,
again at the cell level since that is most convenient when we deal with discontinuous functions ϕ0i :

Z 1 Z 1 1
X h X 2 dϕ̃r 2 dϕ̃s h
α( ũt ϕ̃t )ϕ̃0r ϕ̃0s dX = α( ũt ϕ̃t ) dX
−1 t
2 −1 t=0
h dX h dX 2
Z 1 X 1
1
= (−1)r (−1)s α( ut ϕ̃t (X))dX
2h −1 t=0
1 1
1 X X
≈ (−1)r (−1)s α( ϕ̃t (−1)ũt ) + α( ϕ̃t (1)ũt )
2h t=0 t=0
1
= (−1)r (−1)s (α(ũ0 ) + α(ũ1 )) . (103)
2h
The element matrix in (103) is identical to the one in (101), showing that the group finite element
method and Trapezoidal integration are equivalent with a standard finite discretization of a
nonlinear Laplace term (α(u)u0 )0 using an arithmetic mean for α: [Dx xDx u]i .

54
 Remark about integration in the physical x coordinate.
We might comment on integration in the physical coordinate system too. The common
Trapezoidal rule in Section A.3 cannot be used to integrate derivatives like ϕ0i , because the
formula is derived under the assumption of a continuous integrand. One must instead use
the more basic version of the Trapezoidal rule where all the trapezoids are summed up. This
is straightforward, but I think it is even more straightforward to apply the Trapezoidal rule
on the reference cell and assemble the contributions.

R
The term auv dx in the variational form is linear and gives these terms in the algebraic
equations:

ah h2
(ui−1 + 4ui + ui+1 ) = ah[u − Dx Dx u]i .
6 6
The final term in the variational form is the Neumann condition at the boundary: Cv(0) = Cϕi (0).
With a left-to-right numbering only i = 0 will give a contribution Cv(0) = Cδi0 (since ϕi (0) 6= 0
only for i = 0).

Summary.
For the equation

−(α(u)u0 )0 + au = f (u),
P1 finite elements result in difference equations where
x
• the term −(α(u)u0 )0 becomes −h[Dx α(u) Dx u]i if the group finite element method
or Trapezoidal integration is applied,

• f (u) becomes hf (ui ) with Trapezoidal integration or the “mass matrix” representation
2
h[f (u) − h6 Dx Dx f (u)]i if computed by a group finite element method,
h2
• au leads to the “mass matrix” form ah[u − 6 Dx Dx u]i .

As we now have explicit expressions for the nonlinear difference equations also in the finite
element method, a Picard or Newton method can be defined as shown for the finite difference
method. However, our effort in deriving symbolic forms of the difference equations in the finite
element method was motivated by a desire to see how nonlinear terms in differential equations
make the finite element and difference method different. For practical calculations in computer
programs we apply numerical integration, normally the more accurate Gauss-Legendre quadrature
rules, to the integrals directly. This allows us to easily evaluate the nonlinear algebraic equations
for a given numerical approximation of u (here denoted u− ). To solve the nonlinear algebraic
equations we need to apply the Picard iteration method or Newton’s method to the variational
form directly, as shown next.

55
56
Index
continuation method, 41, 49

fixed-point iteration, 7

group finite element method, 52

latex.codecogs.com web site, 45

linearization, 7
explicit time integration, 6
fixed-point iteration, 7
Picard iteration, 7
successive substitutions, 7

online rendering of LATEX formulas, 45

Picard iteration, 7
product approximation technique, 52

relaxation (nonlinear equations), 11

single Picard iteration technique, 8

stopping criteria (nonlinear problems), 8, 21
successive substitutions, 7

57