Solving nonlinear boundary value problems by a boundary shape function method and a splitting and linearizing method

Abstract

Abstract In the paper, we develop two novel iterative methods to determine the solution of a second-order nonlinear boundary value problem (BVP), which precisely satisfies the specified non-separable boundary conditions by taking advantage of the property of the corresponding boundary shape function (BSF). The first method based on the BSF can exactly transform the BVP to an initial value problem for the new variable with two given initial values, while two unknown terminal values are determined iteratively. By using the BSF in the second method, we derive the fractional powers exponential functions as the bases, which automatically satisfy the boundary conditions. A new splitting and linearizing technique is used to transform the nonlinear BVP into linear equations at each iteration step, which are solved to determine the expansion coefficients and then the solution is available. Upon adopting those two novel methods very accurate solution for the nonlinear BVP with non-separable boundary conditions can be found quickly. Several numerical examples are solved to assess the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed iterative algorithms, which are compared to the shooting method.