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Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologí

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In this paper, we review some numerical methods presented in the literature in the last years to approximate the Cahn-Hilliard equation. Our aim is to compare the main properties of each one of the approaches to try to determine which one we should choose depending on which are the crucial aspects when we approximate the equations. Among the properties that we consider desirable to control are the time accuracy order, energy-stability, unique solvability and the linearity or nonlinearity of the resulting systems. In particular, we concern about the iterative methods used to approximate the nonlinear schemes and the constraints that may arise on the physical and computational parameters.Furthermore, we present the connections of the Cahn-Hilliard equation with other physically motivated systems (not only phase field models) and we state how the ideas of efficient numerical schemes in one topic could be extended to other frameworks in a natural way.

The coupled Navier-Stokes and Q-Tensor system is considered in a bounded three-dimensional domain under homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions for the velocity u and either nonhomogeneous Dirichlet or homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions for the tensor Q.The corresponding initial-value problem in the whole space R 3 was analyzed in [Paicu & Zarnescu, 2012].In this paper, three main results concerning weak solutions will be proved; the existence of global in time weak solutions (bounded up to infinite time), a uniqueness criteria and a maximum principle for Q. Moreover, we identify how to modify the system to deduce symmetry and traceless for Q, for any weak solution. The presence of a stretching term in the Q-system plays a crucial role in all the analysis.

Abstract. In this work, we propose finite element schemes for the numerical approximation of nematic liquid crystal flows, based on a saddle-point formulation of the director vector sub-problem. It introduces a Lagrange multiplier that allows to enforce the sphere condition. In this setting, we can consider the limit problem (without penalty) and the penalized problem (using a Ginzburg-Landau penalty function) in a unified way. Further, the resulting schemes have an stable behavior with respect to the value of the penalty parameter, a key difference with respect to the existing schemes. Two different methods have been considered for the time integration. First, we have considered an implicit algorithm that is unconditionally stable and energy preserving. The linearization of the problem at every time step value can be performed using a quasi-Newton method that allows to decouple fluid velocity and director vector computations for every tangent problem. Then, we have designed a linear semi-implicit algorithm (i.e. it does not involve nonlinear iterations) and proved that it is unconditionally stable, verifying a discrete energy inequality. Finally, some numerical simulations are provided.

In this paper two main results are obtained for a nematic liquid crystal model with timedependent boundary Dirichlet data for the orientation of the crystal molecules. First, the initial-boundary problem is considered, obtaining the existence of global in time (up to infinity time) weak solution, the existence of global regular solution for viscosity coefficient big enough, and the weak/strong uniqueness. Second, using these previous results and the existence of time-periodic weak solutions proved in [2], the regularity of any time-periodic weak solution is deduced for viscosity coefficient big enough.

In the first part, we study the convergence of discrete solutions to splitting schemes for two-phase flow with different mass densities suggested in [Guillen-Gonzalez, Tierra, J.Comput.Math. (6)2014]. They have been formulated for the diffuse interface model in [Abels, Garcke, Grün, M3AS, 2012, DOI:10.1142/S0218202511500138] which is consistent with thermodynamics. Our technique covers various discretization methods for phase-field energies, ranging from convex-concave splitting to difference quotient approaches for the double-well potential. In the second part of the paper, numerical experiments are presented in two space dimensions to identify discretizations of Cahn-Hilliard energies which are ϕ-stable and which do not reduce the acceleration of falling droplets. Finally, 3d simulations in axial symmetric geometries are shown to underline even more the full practicality of the approach.