A numerical method for solving three-dimensional elliptic interface problems with triple junction points

Abstract

Elliptic interface problems with multi-domains have wide applications in engineering and science. However, it is challenging for most existing methods to solve three-dimensional elliptic interface problems with multi-domains due to local geometric complexity, especially for problems with matrix coefficient and sharp-edged interface. There are some recent work in two dimensions for multi-domains and in three dimensions for two domains. However, the extension to three dimensional multi-domain elliptic interface problems is non-trivial. In this paper, we present an efficient non-traditional finite element method with non-body-fitting grids for three-dimensional elliptic interface problems with multi-domains. Numerical experiments show that this method achieves close to second order accurate in the L ∞ norm for piecewise smooth solutions.