On stable parametric finite element methods for the Stefan problem and the Mullins–Sekerka problem with applications to dendritic growth

Abstract

We introduce a parametric finite element approximation for the Stefan problem with the Gibbs–Thomson law and kinetic undercooling, which mimics the underlying energy structure of the problem. The proposed method is also applicable to certain quasi-stationary variants, such as the Mullins–Sekerka problem. In addition, fully anisotropic energies are easily handled. The approximation has good mesh properties, leading to a well-conditioned discretization, even in three space dimensions. Several numerical computations, including for dendritic growth and for snow crystal growth, are presented.