An efficient spline-based DQ method for 2D/3D Riesz space-fractional convection–diffusion equations

Abstract

This paper proposes an efficient spline-based DQ method for the 2D and 3D convection–diffusion equations (CDEs) with Riesz fractional derivative in space, which have been widely used to describe the anomalous solute transport in complex media. Firstly, a spline-based differential quadrature (DQ) formula is developed to approximate the Riesz derivative by using cubic B-splines as trial functions, which allows us to approximate the fractional derivatives with high accuracy and small computational cost. We then utilize it to discretize the fractional derivatives in the governing equation and a cubic B-spline DQ scheme is further established by applying the finite difference (FD) scheme to the resulting system of ordinary differential equations. A brief implementation of the proposed DQ method is also presented. To examine the effectiveness of this spline-based DQ method, numerical tests are finally done on some benchmark problems and the simulation of rotating Gaussian hill in convection-dominated flow governed by fractional derivatives. The advantages in computational accuracy and efficiency are illustrated by comparing the results with the other algorithms in open literature.