Isogeometric collocation method to simulate phase-field crystal model

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to develop a new numerical algorithm to simulate the phase-field model.

Design/methodology/approach

First, the derivative of the temporal direction is discretized by a second-order linearized finite difference scheme where it conserves the energy stability of the mathematical model. Then, the isogeometric collocation (IGC) method is used to approximate the derivative of spacial direction. The IGC procedure can be applied on irregular physical domains. The IGC method is constructed based upon the nonuniform rational B-splines (NURBS). Each curve and surface can be approximated by the NURBS. Also, a map will be defined to project the physical domain to a simple computational domain. In this procedure, the partial derivatives will be transformed to the new domain by the Jacobian and Hessian matrices. According to the mentioned procedure, the first- and second-order differential matrices are built. Furthermore, the pseudo-spectral algorithm is used to derive the first- and second-order nodal differential matrices. In the end, the Greville Abscissae points are used to the collocation method.

Findings

In the numerical experiments, the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method are assessed through two examples, demonstrating its performance on both rectangular and nonrectangular domains.

Originality/value

This research work introduces the IGC method as a simulation technique for the phase-field crystal model.