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The Error Function: Erf: 1 Computational Methods, 2013-2014

The document discusses the error function (erf), which provides a good approximation for solving diffusion problems where the initial temperature distribution has a simple shape. The erf is defined as an integral related to the fundamental solution for diffusion. It can transform integrals involving the fundamental solution into a form that more closely resembles the expression for erf. This allows integrals over non-bounded intervals, which would otherwise require infinite sums, to be expressed in closed form using the properties of erf. Examples are provided to demonstrate how erf can be used to solve for the temperature distribution in cases of piecewise linear and non-bounded initial distributions.

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41 views3 pages

The Error Function: Erf: 1 Computational Methods, 2013-2014

The document discusses the error function (erf), which provides a good approximation for solving diffusion problems where the initial temperature distribution has a simple shape. The erf is defined as an integral related to the fundamental solution for diffusion. It can transform integrals involving the fundamental solution into a form that more closely resembles the expression for erf. This allows integrals over non-bounded intervals, which would otherwise require infinite sums, to be expressed in closed form using the properties of erf. Examples are provided to demonstrate how erf can be used to solve for the temperature distribution in cases of piecewise linear and non-bounded initial distributions.

Uploaded by

Anonymous RlbH6rcsgj
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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THE ERROR FUNCTION: erf

Thanks to the fundamental solution we were able to express the temperature distribution
at a certain time with a continuous function:

where:
is the fundamental solution for the diffusion problem;
describes the initial temperature distribution.
In the case of initial temperature distributions with simple shape (piece-wise linear, for
instance) a good approximation may be reached thanks to the error function (erf), defined
as follows:

being it an odd function, it can be extended to just noticing that


The erf function can be easily connected to the fundamental solution
instance the initial distribution function:

.
. Consider for

The known application of the fundamental solution returns:

Operating a change of variable (note that

),

the equation above can be transformed into one that resembles more the expression of erf:

that, applying basic properties of definite integrals, can be split in the following way:

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Computational methods, 2013-2014

more easily written as:

Consider a second example: an initial distribution that is different from zero in a nonbounded interval of :

The application of the fundamental solution returns now the improper integral:

that even with a discretisation in space would be expressed by a sum of infinite terms.
Operating the same change of variable as the previous case the equation above is
transformed into the following one:

that, for the property of erf of being odd, can be also rewritten as:

For the same properties applied before, the last integral can be split in this way:

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Computational methods, 2013-2014

(remember that the integral of


even function its integral over

over can be solved and results equal to


will be half of the entire one)

being it an

Finally, the last expression is more easily written as:

1.25
1
0.75
0.5
0.25
0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
1.25
3

2/sqrt(p)*exp(x )
erf(x)
2

0
x

Figure 1: the Gaussian exponential and erf

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Computational methods, 2013-2014

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