On mesh restrictions to satisfy comparison principles, maximum principles, and the non-negative constraint: Recent developments and new results

ABSTRACT This article concerns mesh restrictions that are needed to satisfy several important mathematical properties—maximum principles, comparison principles, and the nonnegative constraint—for a general linear second-order elliptic partial differential equation. We critically review some recent developments in the field of discrete maximum principles, derive new results, and discuss some possible future research directions in this area. In particular, we derive restrictions for a three-node triangular (T3) element and a four-node quadrilateral (Q4) element to satisfy comparison principles, maximum principles, and the nonnegative constraint under the standard single-field Galerkin formulation. Analysis is restricted to uniformly elliptic linear differential operators in divergence form with Dirichlet boundary conditions specified on the entire boundary of the domain. Various versions of maximum principles and comparison principles are discussed in both continuous and discrete settings. In the literature, it is well-known that an acute-angled triangle is sufficient to satisfy the discrete weak maximum principle for pure isotropic diffusion. Herein, we show that this condition can be either too restrictive or not sufficient to satisfy various discrete principles when one considers anisotropic diffusivity, advection velocity field, or linear reaction coefficient. Subsequently, we derive appropriate restrictions on the mesh for simplicial (e.g., T3 element) and nonsimplicial (e.g., Q4 element) elements. Based on these conditions, an iterative algorithm is developed to construct simplicial meshes that preserve discrete maximum principles using existing open source mesh generators. Various numerical examples based on different types of triangulations are presented to show the pros and cons of placing restrictions on a computational mesh. We also quantify local and global mass conservation errors using representative numerical examples and illustrate the performance of metric.

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