A priori analysis of multilevel finite volume approximation of 1D convective Cahn–Hilliard equation

Abstract

In this work, we analyze four finite volume methods for the nonlinear convective Cahn–Hilliard equation with specified initial condition and periodic boundary conditions. The methods used are: implicit one-level, explicit one-level, implicit multilevel and explicit multilevel finite volume methods. The existence and uniqueness of solution, convergence and stability of the finite volume solutions are proved. We compute $$L_2$$ - error and rate of convergence for all methods. We then compare the multilevel methods with the one-level methods by means of stability and CPU time. It is shown that the multilevel finite volume method is faster than the one-level method.