FINITE DIFFERENCE METHOD

NAME:- OMKAR NARAYAN PANSARE

M.TECH ( MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING)

SUBJECT NAME:- FINITE ELEMENTS METHOD

 INTRODUCTION :-

• Finite Difference Method (FDM) is one of the methods used to solve differential

equations that are difficult or impossible to solve analytically.

• The finite difference method (FDM) is an approximate method for solving partial

differential equations. It has been used to solve a wide range of problems. These

include linear and non-linear, time independent and dependent problems

• In mathematics, finite-difference methods (FDM) are numerical methods for

solving differential equations by approximating them with difference equations, in

which finite differences approximate the derivatives. FDMs are thus

discretization methods.
  FEM vs Finite difference method :-

FDM FEM
1. It makes pointwise approximation to It makes piecewise approximation
the governing equation

2.It ensures continuity only at the node It ensure continuity at node point as well
points ,continuity along the side of grid as along the sides of the element
lines are not ensure

3.It do not give value at any point except It give value at any point
at node point

4.It makes stair type approximation to FEM can consider the slopping
slope and curve boundaries boundaries exactly
5.It need larger no of nodes to get good FEM needs fewer nodes
result
6. Fairly Complicated problems can be It can handle all complicated problems
handled
 Finite difference approximations:-

 General principle :-

1. The principle of finite difference methods is close to the numerical schemes

used to solve ordinary differential equations.
2. It consists in approximating the differential operator by replacing the
derivatives in the equation using differential quotients.
3. The domain is partitioned in space and in time and approximations of the
solution are computed at the space or time points.
4. The error between the numerical solution and the exact solution is determined
by the error that is commited by going from a differential operator to a
difference operator.This error is called the discretization error or truncation
error.
5. The term truncation error reflects the fact that a finite part of a Taylor series is
used in the approximation.
 NUMERICAL METHODS

FINITE DIFFERENCE WEIGHTED RESIDUE FINITE ELEMENT

METHOD METHOD METHOD

Forward difference
method

Central difference
method

Backward difference
method

approximations
 FINITE DIFFERENCE FORMULATION OF DIFFERENTIAL
EQUATIONS:-
• The numerical methods for solving differential equations are based on replacing the
differential equations by algebraic equations. In the case of the popular finite difference
method, this is done by replacing the derivatives by differences. Below we demonstrate
this with both first- and second-order derivatives.
• Applying the finite-difference method to a differential equation involves replacing all
derivatives with difference formulas. In the heat equation there are derivatives with
respect to time, and derivatives with respect to space. Using different combinations of
mesh points in the difference formulas results in different schemes.
• we develop the finite difference formulation of heat conduction problems by replacing
the derivatives in the differential equations by differences. In the following section we
do it using the energy balance method, which does not require any knowledge of
differential equations
 • The first derivative of f(x) at a point is equivalent to the slope of
a line tangent to the curve at that point and is defined as,

[The derivative of a function at a

point represents the slope of the
function at that point.]

• This approximate expression of the derivative in terms of

differences is the finite difference form of the first derivative. The
equation above can also be obtained by writing the Taylor series
expansion of the function f about the point x,

Schematic of the nodes and the

nodal temperatures used in the
development of the finite difference
formulation of heat transfer in a
plane wall.
 • the first derivative of temperature dT/dx at the
midpoints m -½ and m+½ of the sections surrounding
the node m can be expressed as

• Noting that the second derivative is simply the derivative of the

first derivative, the second derivative of temperature at node m
can be expressed as
The differential equation is valid at
every point of a medium, whereas the
finite difference equation is valid at
discrete points (the nodes) only

• the second derivative of temperature at a node m is expressed in terms of the

temperatures at node m and its two neighboring nodes. Then the differential
equation
 • the governing equation for steady one-dimensional heat transfer in a plane wall with
heat generation and constant thermal conductivity, can be expressed in the finite
difference form as (Fig.)

Where,
èm ,is the rate of heat generation per unit volume at node m.
If the surface temperatures T0 and TM are specified,
M-1, unknown temperatures at the interior nodes
• The finite difference formulation above can easily be
extended to two- or three-dimensional heat transfer problems
by replacing each second derivative by a difference equation
in that direction
• For example, the finite difference formulation for steady
two-dimensional heat conduction in a region with heat
generation and constant thermal conductivity can be
expressed in rectangular coordinates as shown in fig
Finite difference mesh for two
dimensional conduction in
rectangular coordinates.
• The finite difference formulation is given above to demonstrate how difference
equations are obtained from differential equations.
• However, we use the energy balance approach in the following sections to obtain
the numerical formulation because it is more intuitive and can handle boundary
conditions more easily.
  How to apply FEM to HEAT TRANSFER:-
• Temperature of a Heated Plate with Fixed Boundary Conditions

Qn.1] Use Liebmann’s method (Gauss-Seidel) to solve for the temperature of

the heated plate in Fig. 29.4. Employ overrelaxation with a value of 1.5 for
the weighting factor and iterate to εs = 1%.

Solution. Equation (29.11) at i=1, j=1 is

 T11 = 18.75

and applying overrelaxation yields ,

T11 = 1.5(18.75)+(1−1.5)0 = 28.125

The computation is repeated for the other rows to give

T12 = 38.67188 T22 = 18.45703
T32 = 34.18579 T13 = 80.12696
T23 = 74.46900 T33 = 96.99554
Because all the Ti,j’s are initially zero, all εa’s for the first iteration will be 100%. For
the second iteration the results are

T11 = 32.51953 T21 = 22.35718 T31 = 28.60108 T12 =

57.95288 T22 = 61.63333 T32 = 71.86833
T13 = 75.21973 T23 = 87.95872 T33 = 67.68736

The error for T1,1 can be estimated as,

|(εa)1,1|=   100%=13.5%

Because this value is above the stopping criterion of 1%, the computation is
continued. The ninth iteration gives the result,
T11 = 43.00061 T21 = 33.29755 T31 = 33.88506
T12 = 63.21152 T22 = 56.11238 T32 = 52.33999
T13 = 78.58718 T23 = 76.06402 T33 = 69.71050
where the maximum error is 0.71%.

Figure 29.5 shows the results. As expected, a gradient is established as heat flows
from high to low temperature

Temperature distribution for a heated plate subject to fixed boundary conditions