Abstract
Finite element approximations of minimal surfaces are not always precise. They can even sometimes completely collapse. In this paper, we provide a simple and inexpensive method, in terms of computational cost, to improve finite element approximations of minimal surfaces by local boundary mesh refinements. By highlighting the fact that a collapse is simply the limit case of a locally bad approximation, we show that our method can also be used to avoid the collapse of finite element approximations. We also extend the study of such approximations to partially free boundary problems and give a theorem for their convergence. Numerical examples showing improvements induced by the method are given throughout the paper.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ciarlet, P.: The Finite Element Method for Elliptic Problems. North Holland (1978). Reprinted by SIAM (2002)
Courant, R.: Dirichlet’s Principle, Conformal Mapping, and Minimal Surfaces. Interscience (1950). Reprinted by Springer (1997), reprinted by Dover (2005)
Dierkes, U., Hildebrandt, S., Sauvigny, F.: Minimal Surfaces, Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften, vol. 339. Springer, Berlin (2010)
Douglas, J.: Solution of the problem of plateau. Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 33(1), 263–321 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1090/S0002-9947-1931-1501590-9
Dziuk, G., Hutchinson, J.: The discrete plateau problem: algorithm and numerics. Math. Comput. 68, 1–23 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1090/S0025-5718-99-01025-X
Dziuk, G., Hutchinson, J.: The discrete plateau problem: convergence results. Math. Comput. 68, 519–546 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1090/S0025-5718-99-01026-1
Osserman, R.: A Survey of Minimal Surfaces. Dover, New York (2014)
Radó, T.: The problem of the least area and the problem of plateau. Math. Z. 32, 763–796 (1930)
Schatz, A.: A weak discrete maximum principle and stability of the finite element method in \(l_\infty \) on plane polygonal domains. I. Math. Comput. 34(149), 77–91 (1980). https://doi.org/10.2307/2006221
Tsuchiya, T.: On two methods for approximating minimal surfaces in parametric form. Math. Comput. 46, 517–529 (1986). https://doi.org/10.2307/2007990
Tsuchiya, T.: Discrete solution of the plateau problem and its convergence. Math. Comput. 49, 157–165 (1987). https://doi.org/10.2307/2008255
Tsuchiya, T.: A note on discrete solutions of the plateau problem. Math. Comput. 54, 131–138 (1990). https://doi.org/10.2307/2008685
Tsuchiya, T.: Finite element approximations of conformal mappings. Numer. Funct. Anal. Opt. 22, 419–440 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1081/NFA-100105111
Tsuchiya, T.: Finite element approximations of conformal mappings to unbounded jordan domains. Numer. Funct. Anal. Opt. 35, 1382–1397 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1080/01630563.2013.837482
Verfürth, R.: A review of a posteriori error estimation and adaptive mesh-refinement techniques. Wiley, Hoboken (1996)
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
About this article
Cite this article
Grodet, A., Tsuchiya, T. Finite element approximations of minimal surfaces: algorithms and mesh refinement. Japan J. Indust. Appl. Math. 35, 707–725 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13160-018-0303-2
Received:
Revised:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13160-018-0303-2