A fully discrete curve-shortening polygonal evolution law for moving boundary problems

Abstract

We consider the numerical integration of moving boundary problems with the curve-shortening property, such as the mean curvature flow and Hele-Shaw flow. We propose a fully discrete curve-shortening polygonal evolution law. The proposed evolution law is fully implicit, and the key to the derivation is to devise the definitions of tangent and normal vectors and tangential and normal velocities at each vertex in an implicit manner. Numerical experiments show that the proposed method allows the use of relatively large time step sizes and also captures the area-preserving or dissipative property in good accuracy.