Exact solutions of nonlinear diffusion equations by variational iteration method

Abstract

In this paper, He’s variational iteration method is applied to obtain exact solutions of some nonlinear diffusion equations. The variational iteration method is used to construct correction functionals using general Lagrange multipliers identified optimally via the variational theory, and the initial approximations can be freely chosen with unknown constants. The solutions obtained are compared with those obtained by the Adomian decomposition method and homotopy perturbation method, showing excellent agreement, but the variational iteration method is more effective. He’s variational iteration method can be introduced to overcome the difficulties arising in calculating Adomian polynomials.