# 8. Nonlinear problems¶

The finite element method may also be employed to numerically solve nonlinear PDEs. In order to do this, we can apply the classical technique for solving nonlinear systems: we employ an iterative scheme such as Newton’s method to create a sequence of linear problems whose solutions converge to the correct solution to the nonlinear problem.

Warning

This chapter formed the content of the mastery material in some years, but does not currently do so. It is presented for reference only.

## 8.1. A model problem¶

As a simple case of a non-linear PDE, we can consider a steady non-linear diffusion equation. This is similar to the Poisson problem, except that the diffusion rate now depends on the value of the solution:

(8.1)\begin{align}\begin{aligned}-\nabla\cdot\left((u+1)\nabla u\right) = g\\u = b \textrm{ on } \Gamma\end{aligned}\end{align}

where $$g$$ and $$b$$ are given functions defined over $$\Omega$$ and $$\Gamma$$ respectively.

We can create the weak form of (8.1) by integrating by parts and taking the boundary conditions into account. The problem becomes, find $$u\in V$$ such that:

(8.2)\begin{align}\begin{aligned}\int_\Omega \nabla v_0 \cdot (u + 1) \nabla u \, \mathrm{d} x = \int_\Omega v_0g \, \mathrm{d} x \qquad \forall v_0 \in V_0\\u_\Gamma = b.\end{aligned}\end{align}

Once more, $$V_0$$ is the subspace of $$V$$ spanned by basis functions which vanish on the boundary, $$V = V_0 \oplus V_\Gamma$$, and $$u = u_0 + u_\Gamma$$ with $$u_0\in V_0$$ and $$u_\Gamma\in V_\Gamma$$. This is corresponds directly with the weak form of the Poisson equation we already met. However, (8.2) is still nonlinear in $$u$$ so we cannot simply substitute $$u = u_i\phi_i$$ in order to obtain a linear matrix system to solve.

## 8.2. Residual form¶

The general weak form of a non-linear problem is, find $$u\in V$$ such that:

(8.3)$f(u; v) = 0 \qquad \forall v \in V$

The use of a semicolon is a common convention to indicate that $$f$$ is assumed to be linear in the arguments after the semicolon, but might be nonlinear in the arguments before the semicolon. In this case, we observe that $$f$$ may be nonlinear in $$u$$ but is (by construction) linear in $$v$$.

The function $$f$$ is called the residual of the nonlinear system. In essence, $$f(u; v) = 0 \ \forall v\in V$$ if and only if $$u$$ is a weak solution to the PDE. Since the residual is linear in $$v$$, it suffices to define the residual for each $$\phi_i$$ in the basis of $$V$$. For $$\phi_i\in V_0$$, the residual is just the weak form of the equation, but what do we do for the boundary? The simple answer is that we need a linear functional which is zero if the boundary condition is satisfied at this test function, and nonzero otherwise. The simplest example of such a functional is:

(8.4)$f(u; \phi_i) = \phi^*_i(u) - \phi^*_i(b)$

where $$\phi^*_i$$ is the node associated with basis function $$\phi_i$$. For point evaluation nodes, $$\phi^*_i(u)$$ is the value of the proposed solution at node point $$i$$ and $$\phi^*_i(b)$$ is just the boundary condition evaluated at that same point.

So for our model problem, we now have a full statement of the residual in terms of a basis function $$\phi_i$$:

(8.5)$\begin{split}f(u; \phi_i) = \begin{cases} \displaystyle\int_\Omega \nabla \phi_i \cdot \left((u + 1) \nabla u\right) - \phi_i g \, \mathrm{d} x & \phi_i\in V_0\\ \phi^*_i(u) - \phi^*_i(b) & \phi_i\in V_\Gamma \end{cases}\end{split}$

Hint

Evaluating the residual requires that the boundary condition be evaluated at the boundary nodes. A simple (if slightly inefficient) way to achieve this is to interpolate the boundary condition onto a function $$\hat{b}\in V$$.

## 8.3. Linearisation and Gâteaux Derivatives¶

Having stated our PDE in residual form, we now need to linearise the problem and thereby employ a technique such as Newton’s method. In order to linearise the residual, we need to differentiate it with respect to $$u$$. Since $$u$$ is not a scalar real variable, but is instead a function in $$V$$, the appropriate form of differentiation is the Gâteaux Derivative, given by:

(8.6)$J(u; v, \hat{u}) = \lim_{\epsilon\rightarrow 0}\frac{f(u+\epsilon\hat{u}; v)-f(u; v)}{\epsilon}.$

Here, the new argument $$\hat{u}\in V$$ indicates the “direction” in which the derivative is to be taken. Let’s work through the Gâteaux Derivative for the residual of our model problem. Assume first that $$v\in V_0$$. Then:

(8.7)$\begin{split}\begin{split} J(u; v, \hat{u}) &= \lim_{\epsilon\rightarrow 0}\frac{\displaystyle\int_\Omega \nabla v \cdot \left((u +\epsilon\hat{u} + 1) \nabla (u + \epsilon\hat{u})\right) - vg \, \mathrm{d} x - \displaystyle\int_\Omega \nabla v \cdot \left((u + 1) \nabla u\right) - vg \, \mathrm{d} x}{\epsilon}\\ &= \lim_{\epsilon\rightarrow 0}\frac{\displaystyle\int_\Omega \nabla v \cdot \left(\epsilon\hat{u} \nabla u + (u + 1) \nabla (\epsilon\hat{u}) + \epsilon\hat{u} \nabla (\epsilon\hat{u})\right) \, \mathrm{d} x}{\epsilon}\\ &= \int_\Omega \nabla v \cdot \left(\hat{u} \nabla u + (u + 1) \nabla \hat{u} \right) \, \mathrm{d} x.\\ \end{split}\end{split}$

Note that, as expected, $$J$$ is linear in $$\hat{u}$$.

Next, we can work out the boundary case by assuming $$v=\phi_i$$, one of the basis functions of $$V_\Gamma$$:

(8.8)$\begin{split}\begin{split} J(u; \phi_i, \hat{u}) &= \lim_{\epsilon\rightarrow 0}\frac{\phi^*_i(u+\epsilon\hat{u}) - \phi^*_i(b) - \left(\phi^*_i(u) - \phi^*_i(b)\right)}{\epsilon}\\ &= \phi^*_i(\hat{u}) \qquad \textrm{since } \phi^*_i(\cdot) \textrm{ is linear.} \end{split}\end{split}$

Once again, we can observe that $$J$$ is linear in $$\hat{u}$$. Indeed, if we choose $$\hat{u} = \phi_j$$ for some $$\phi_j$$ in the basis if $$V$$ then the definition of a nodal basis gives us:

(8.9)$J(u; \phi_i, \phi_j) = \delta_{ij}$

## 8.4. A Taylor expansion and Newton’s method¶

Since we now have the derivative of the residual with respect to a perturbation to the prospective solution $$u$$, we can write the first terms of a Taylor series approximation for the value of the residual at a perturbed solution $$u+\hat{u}$$:

(8.10)$f(u+\hat{u}; v) = f(u; v) + J(u; v, \hat{u}) +\ldots \qquad \forall v\in V.$

Now, just as in the scalar case, Newton’s method consists of approximating the function (the residual) by the first two terms and solving for the update that will set these terms to zero. In other words:

(8.11)$u^{n+1} = u^n + \hat{u}$

where $$\hat{u} \in V$$ is the solution to:

(8.12)$J(u^n; v, \hat{u}) = - f(u^n; v) \qquad \forall v \in V.$

In fact, (8.12) is simply a linear finite element problem! To make this explicit, we can expand $$v$$ and $$\hat{u}$$ in terms of basis functions $$\{\phi_i\}_{i=0}^{n-1} \in V$$ such that $$v = \sum_{i}v_i\phi_i$$ and $$\hat{u} = \sum_{j}\hat{u}_j\phi_j$$. We note, as previously, that we we can drop the coefficients $$v_i$$ giving:

(8.13)$\sum_{j} J(u^n; \phi_i, \phi_j) \hat{u}_j = - f(u^n; \phi_i) \qquad \forall\, 0\leq i < n .$

For our nonlinear diffusion problem, the matrix $$J$$ is given by:

(8.14)$\begin{split}J_{ij} = J(u^n; \phi_i, \phi_j) = \begin{cases} \displaystyle\int_\Omega \nabla \phi_i \cdot \left(\phi_j \nabla u^n + (u^n + 1) \nabla \phi_j \right) \, \mathrm{d} x & \phi_i\in V_0\\ \delta_{ij} & \phi_i \in V_\Gamma, \end{cases}\end{split}$

and the right hand side vector $$f$$ is given by (8.5). This matrix, $$J$$, is termed the Jacobian matrix of $$f$$.

### 8.4.1. Stopping criteria for Newton’s method¶

Since Newton’s method is an iterative algorithm, it creates a (hopefully convergent) sequence of approximations to the correct solution to the original nonlinear problem. How do we know when to accept the solution and terminate the algorithm?

The answer is that the update, $$\hat{u}$$ which is calculated at each step of Newton’s method is itself an approximation to the error in the solution. It is therefore appropriate to stop Newton’s method when this error estimate becomes sufficiently small in the $$L^2$$ norm.

The observant reader will observe that $$\hat{u}$$ is in fact an estimate of the error in the previous step. This is indeed true: the Newton step is both an estimate of the previous error and a correction to that error. However, having calculated the error estimate, it is utterly unreasonable to not apply the corresponding correction.

Note

Note!

Another commonly employed stopping mechanism is to consider the size of the residual $$f$$. However, the residual is not actually a function in $$V$$, but is actually a linear operator in $$V^*$$. Common practice would be to identify $$f$$ with a function in $$V$$ by simply taking the function whose coefficients match those of $$f$$. The $$L^2$$ or $$l^2$$ norm is then taken of this function and this value is used to determine when convergence has occured.

This approach effectively assumes that the Riesz map on $$V$$ is the trivial operator which identifies the basis function coefficients. This would be legitimate were the inner product on $$V$$ the $$l^2$$ dot product. However, since the inner product on $$V$$ is defined by an integral, the mesh resolution is effectively encoded into $$f$$. This means that this approach produces convergence rates which depend on the level of mesh refinement.

Avoiding this mesh dependency requires the evaluation of an operator norm or, equivalently, the solution of a linear system in order to find the Riesz representer of $$f$$ in $$V$$. However, since the error-estimator approach given above is both an actual estimate of the error in the solution, and requires no additional linear solves, it should be regarded as a preferable approach. For a full treatment of Newton methods, see [Deu11].

### 8.4.2. Stopping threshold values¶

What, then, qualifies as a sufficiently small value of our error estimate? There are two usual approaches:

relative tolerance

Convergence is deemed to occur when the estimate becomes sufficiently small compared with the first error estimate calculated. This is generally the more defensible approach since it takes into account the overall scale of the solution. $$10^{-6}$$ would be a reasonably common relative tolerance.

absolute tolerance

Computers employ finite precision arithmetic, so there is a limit to the accuracy which can ever be achieved. This is a difficult value to estimate, since it depends on the number and nature of operations undertaken in the algorithm. A common approach is to set this to a very small value (e.g. $$10^{-50}$$) initially, in order to attempt to ensure that the relative tolerance threshold is hit. Only if it becomes apparent that the problem being solved is in a regime for which machine precision is a problem is a higher absolute tolerance set.

It is important to realise that both of these criteria involve making essentially arbitrary judgements about the scale of error which is tolerable. There is also a clear trade-off between the level of error tolerated and the cost of performing a large number of Newton steps. For realistic problems, it is therefore frequently expedient and/or necessary to tune the convergence criteria to the particular case.

In making these judgements, it is also important to remember that the error in the Newton solver is just one of the many sources of error in a calculation. It is pointless to expend computational effort in an attempt to drive the level of error in this component of the solver to a level which will be swamped by a larger error occurring somewhere else in the process.

### 8.4.3. Failure modes¶

Just as with the Newton method for scalar problems, Newton iteration is not guaranteed to converge for all nonlinear problems or for all initial guesses. If Newton’s method fails to converge, then the algorithm presented so far constitutes an infinite loop. It is therefore necessary to define some circumstances in which the algorithm should terminate having failed to find a solution. Two such circumstances are commonly employed:

maximum iterations

It is a reasonable heuristic that Newton’s method has failed if it takes a very large number of iterations. What constitutes “too many” is once again a somewhat arbitrary judgement, although if the approach takes many tens of iterations this should always be cause for reconsideration!

diverged error estimate

Newton’s method is not guaranteed to produce a sequence of iterations which monotonically decrease the error, however if the error estimate has increased to, say, hundreds or thousands of times its initial value, this would once again be grounds for the algorithm to fail.

Note that these failure modes are heuristic: having the algorithm terminate for these reasons is really an instruction to the user to think again about the problem, the solver, and the initial guess.

## 8.5. Implementing a nonlinear problem¶

Note

This problem is intentionally stated in more general terms than the previous ones. It is your responsibility to decide on a code structure, to derive a method of manufactured solutions answer, and to create the convergence tests which demonstrate that your solution is correct.

Warning

This problem is not currently an assessable part of the module at Imperial College. It is presented here for reference.

Exercise 8.1

The $$p$$-laplacian is a generalisation of the laplacian from a second derivative to an arbitrary derivative. It is nonlinear for $$p\neq2$$.

Implement solve_mastery() so that it solves the following problem using degree 1 Lagrange elements over the unit square domain:

(8.15)\begin{align}\begin{aligned}-\nabla\cdot\left(|\nabla u|^{p-2} \nabla u\right) = g\\u = b \textrm{ on } \Gamma\\p = 4\end{aligned}\end{align}

Select the solution $$u=e^{xy}$$ and compute the required forcing function $$g$$ so that your solution solves the equations. Make sure your boundary condition function $$b$$ is consistent with your chosen solution!

For this problem, it is not possible to use the zero function as an initial guess for Newton’s method. A much better choice is to treat the 2-laplacian as an approximation to the 4-laplacian, and therefore to solve Poisson’s equation first to obtain a good initial guess for the 4-laplacian problem.

1. A written component containing your derivation of:

1. The weak form of (8.15); and

2. the Jacobian; and

3. the forcing term implied by the specified manufactured solution; and

4. an explanation of why the zero function cannot be used as an initial guess for the solution.

A neatly hand-written or a typed submission are equally acceptable.

2. The code to implement the solution. This should be in fe_utils.solvers.mastery.py in your implementation. A convergence test for your code is provided in test/test_12_mastery_convergence.py.

The submission of your mastery exercise, and indeed the entire implementation exercise will be on Blackboard. You will submit a PDF containing the derivations above, and the git sha1 for the commit you would like to have marked.

Hint

It is an exceptionally useful aid to debugging to have your Newton iteration print out the value of the error norm and the iteration number for each iteration. If you wish to see the printed output while running the test, you can pass the -s option to py.test.

Hint

You could parametrise your code by $$p$$. By setting $$p=2$$, you reduce your problem to the linear case. You can use the linear case to test your code initially, before setting $$p=4$$ for the actual exercise. Note that, in the linear case, Newton’s method will converge in exactly one iteration (although your algorithm will have to actually calculate two steps in order to know that convergence has occurred).