A second-order bulk–surface splitting for parabolic problems with dynamic boundary conditions

Abstract This paper introduces a novel approach for the construction of bulk–surface splitting schemes for semilinear parabolic partial differential equations with dynamic boundary conditions. The proposed construction is based on a reformulation of the system as a partial differential–algebraic equation and the inclusion of certain delay terms for the decoupling. To obtain a fully discrete scheme, the splitting approach is combined with finite elements in space and a backward differentiation formula in time. Within this paper, we focus on the second-order case, resulting in a $3$-step scheme. We prove second-order convergence under the assumption of a weak CFL-type condition and confirm the theoretical findings by numerical experiments. Moreover, we illustrate the potential for higher-order splitting schemes numerically.