Adapting meshes and time-steps for phase change problems

Atti Accad. Naz. Lincei Mem. Cl. Sci. Fis. Mat. Natur. Sez. Ia (9), 8 (1997), 273-292.

Ricardo H. Nochetto
Department of Mathematics
University of Maryland, College Park
College Park, MD 20742, USA

rhn@math.umd.edu

Alfred Schmidt
Institut fur Angewandte Mathematik
Universitat Freiburg
7800 Freiburg, Germany

alfred@mathematik.uni-freiburg.de

Claudio Verdi
Dipartimento di Matematica
Universita di Milano
Milano, 20133, Italy

verdi@paola.mat.unimi.it

Abstract

We address the numerical approximation of the two-phase Stefan problem and discuss an adaptive finite element method based on rigorous a posteriori error estimation and refinement/coarsening. We also investigate how to restrict coarsening for the resulting method to be stable and convergent. We review implementation issues associated with bisection and conclude with simulations of a persistent corner singularity, for which adaptivity is an essential tool.