Abstract
The Cahn-Hilliard (CH) equation is a time-dependent fourth-order partial differential equation (PDE). When solving the CH equation via the finite element method (FEM), the domain is discretized by C1-continuous basis functions or the equation is split into a pair of second-order PDEs, and discretized via C0-continuous basis functions. In the current work, a quantitative comparison between C1 Hermite and C0 Lagrange elements is carried out using a continuous Galerkin FEM formulation. The different discretizations are evaluated using the method of manufactured solutions solved with Newton's method and Jacobian-Free Newton Krylov. It is found that the use of linear Lagrange elements provides the fastest computation time for a given number of elements, while the use of cubic Hermite elements provides the lowest error. The results offer a set of benchmarks to consider when choosing basis functions to solve the CH equation. In addition, an example of microstructure evolution demonstrates the different types of elements for a traditional phase-field model.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 74-80 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Journal of Computational Physics |
Volume | 236 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 1 2013 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Numerical Analysis
- Modeling and Simulation
- Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)
- General Physics and Astronomy
- Computer Science Applications
- Computational Mathematics
- Applied Mathematics