NUMERICAL SOLUTIONS OF PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS USING FINITE DIFFERENCE METHOD AND MATHEMATICA

The book is intended for graduate students of Engineering, Mathematics and Physics. We have numerically solved Hyperbolic and Parabolic partial differential equations with various initial conditions using Finite Difference Method and Mathematica. Replacing derivatives by finite difference approximations in these differential equations in conjunction with boundary conditions and initial conditions lead to equations relating numerical solutions at various position and time. These relations are intricate in that numerical value of the solution at one particular position and time is related with that at several other position and time. We have surmounted the intricacies by writing programs in Mathematica 6.0 that neatly provide systematic tabulation of the numerical values for all necessary position and time. This enabled us to plot the solutions as functions of position and time. Comparison with analytic solutions revealed nearly perfect match in every case. We have demonstrated conditions under which the nearly perfect match can be obtained even for larger increments in position or time.