FAST ALGORITHM BASED ON TT-M FE METHOD FOR MODIFIED CAHN-HILLIARD EQUATION

We consider numerical methods for solving the modified Cahn-Hilliard equation involving strong nonlinearities. A fast algorithm based on time two-mesh (TT-M) finite element (FE) scheme is proposed to overcome the time-consuming computation of the nonlinear terms. The TT-M FE algorithm includes three main steps: Firstly, a nonlinear FE scheme is solved on a coarse time-mesh pi(c). Here, the FE method is used for spatial discretization and the implicit second-order theta scheme (containing both implicit Crank-Nicolson scheme and second-order backward difference method) is used for temporal discretization. Secondly, the Lagrange's interpolation is used to obtain the interpolation result on the fine time-mesh. Finally, a linearized FE system is solved on a fine time-mesh tau.(tau < tau(c)). The stability analysis and priori error estimates are provided in detail. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the validity of the proposed scheme. The TT-M FE method is compared with the traditional Galerkin FE method and it is evident that the TT-M FE method can save the calculation time.