Convergence analysis of some first order and second order time accurate gradient schemes for semilinear second order hyperbolic equations
Authors: Bradji Abdallah 
Published: May 2016

This work is devoted to the convergence analysis of finite volume schemes for a model of semilinear second order hyperbolic equations. The model includes for instance the so‐called Sine‐Gordon equation which appears for instance in Solid Physics (cf. Fang and Li, Adv Math (China) 42 (2013), 441–457; Liu et al., Numer Methods Partial Differ Equ 31 (2015), 670–690). We are motivated by two works. The first one is Eymard et al. (IMA J Numer Anal 30 (2010), 1009–1043) where a recent class of nonconforming finite volume meshes is introduced. The second one is Eymard et al. (Numer Math 82 (1999), 91–116) where a convergence of a finite volume scheme for semilinear elliptic equations is provided. The mesh considered in Eymard et al. (Numer Math 82 (1999), 91–116) is admissible in the sense of Eymard et al. (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2000, 723–1020) and a convergence of a family of approximate solutions toward an exact solution when the mesh size tends to zero is proved. This article is also a continuation of our previous two works (Bradji, Numer Methods Partial Differ Equ 29 (2013), 1278–1321; Bradji, Numer Methods Partial Differ Equ 29 (2013), 1–39) which dealt with the convergence analysis of implicit finite volume schemes for the wave equation.

We use as discretization in space the generic spatial mesh introduced in Eymard et al. (IMA J Numer Anal 30 (2010), 1009–1043), whereas the discretization in time is performed using a uniform mesh. Two finite volume schemes are derived using the discrete gradient of Eymard et al. (IMA J Numer Anal 30 (2010), 1009–1043). The unknowns of these two schemes are the values at the center of the control volumes, at some internal interfaces, and at the mesh points of the time discretization. The first scheme is inspired from the previous work (Bradji, Numer Methods Partial Differ Equ 29 (2013), 1–39), whereas the second one (in which the discretization in time is performed using a Newmark method) is inspired from the work (Bradji, Numer Methods Partial Differ Equ 29 (2013), 1278–1321). Under the assumption that the mesh size of the time discretization is small, we prove the existence and uniqueness of the discrete solutions. If we assume in addition to this that the exact solution is smooth, we derive and prove three error estimates for each scheme. The first error estimate is concerning an estimate for the error between a discrete gradient of the approximate solution and the gradient of the exact solution whereas the second and the third ones are concerning the estimate for the error between the exact solution and the discrete solution in the discrete seminorm of
and in the norm of
. The convergence rate is proved to be
for the first scheme and
for the second scheme, where
(resp. k) is the mesh size of the spatial (resp. time) discretization. The existence, uniqueness, and convergence results stated above do not require any relation between k and
.

The analysis presented in this work is also applicable in the gradient schemes framework. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 33: 5–33, 2017