An investigation of collocation algorithms for solving boundary value problems system of ODEs

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with an investigation and evaluation of collocation algorithms for solving two-point boundary value problems for systems of ordinary differential equations. An emphasis is on developing reliable and efficient adaptive mesh selection algorithms in piecewise collocation methods. General background materials including basic concepts and descriptions of the method as well as some functional analysis tools needed in developing some error estimates are given at the beginning. A brief review of some developments in the methods to be used is provided for later referencing. By utilising the special structure of the collocation matrices, a more compact block matrix structure is introduced and an algorithm for generating and solving the matrix is proposed. Some practical aspects and computational considerations of matrices involved in the collocation process such as analysis of arithmetic operations and amount of memory spaces needed are considered. An examination of scaling process to reduce the condition number is also presented. A numerical evaluation of some error estimates developed by considering the differential operator, the related matrices and the residual is carried out. These estimates are used to develop adaptive mesh selection algorithms, in particular as a cheap criterion for terminating the computation process. Following a discussion on mesh selection strategies, a criterion function for use in adaptive algorithms is introduced and a numerical scheme to equidistributing values of the criterion function is proposed. An adaptive algorithm based on this criterion is developed and the results of numerical experiments are compared with those using some well known criterion functions. The various examples are chosen in such a way that they include problems with interior or boundary layers. In addition, an algorithm has been developed to predict the necessary number of subintervals for a given tolerance, with the aim of improving the efficiency of the whole process. Using a good initial mesh in adaptive algorithms would be expected to provide some further improvement in the algorithms. This leads to the idea of locating the layer regions and determining suitable break points in such regions before the numerical process. Based on examining the eigenvalues of the coefficient matrix in the differential equation in the specified interval, using their magnitudes and rates of change, the algorithms for predicting possible layer regions and estimating the number of break points needed in such regions are constructed. The effectiveness of these algorithms is evaluated by carrying out a number of numerical experiments. The final chapter gives some concluding remarks of the work and comment on results of numerical experiments. Certain possible improvements and extensions for further research are also briefly given.