A deterministic model for the distribution of the stopping time in a stochastic equation and its numerical solution

In this work, we consider a stochastic differential equation that generalizes the well known Paris' equation from fracture of materials. The model describes the propagation of cracks on solids, and it includes a deterministic summand and a stochastic component in terms of a Brownian motion. The use of Ito's stochastic integral gives an equivalent stochastic integral equation that is further generalized here. We note that the probability distribution of the stopping time of the general model satisfies a deterministic diffusion-advection partial differential equation for which the solution is known only in a reduced number of particular cases. Motivated by these analytical results, we develop a fast finite-difference method to approximate the distribution of the stopping time. The method is an explicit exponential-like technique that preserves the main features of a probability distribution, namely, the non-negativity, the boundedness from above by 1 as well as the spatial mono tonicity. Moreover, the method is a monotone technique that is also capable of preserving the temporal monotonicity of the approximations. These properties of the proposed methodology are thoroughly established in the present manuscript. A continuity condition of the numerical solutions in terms of the initial conditions and the temporal computational parameter is established also, together with a limiting property of the methodology when the free parameter tends to infinity. For comparison purposes, we are providing an implicit and stable discretization of the mathematical model which has a second order of convergence but for which conditions that guarantee the positivity, the boundedness and the monotonicity of approximations are not available. The numerical simulations obtained with implementations of our techniques show that the explicit method is an efficient scheme that preserves the characteristics of interest (non-negativity, boundedness from above by 1 and monotonicity), and that the numerical approximations are in good agreement with the known exact solutions. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.