An interpolation‐based local differential quadrature method to solve partial differential equations using irregularly distributed nodes

To circumvent the constraint in application of the conventional differential quadrature (DQ) method that the solution domain has to be a regular region, an interpolation-based local differential quadrature (LDQ) method is proposed in this paper. Instead of using regular nodes placed on mesh lines in the DQ method (DQM), irregularly distributed nodes are employed in the LDQ method. That is, any spatial derivative at a nodal point is approximated by a linear weighted sum of the functional values of irregularly distributed nodes in the local physical domain. The feature of the new approach lies in the fact that the weighting coefficients are determined by the quadrature rule over the irregularly distributed local supporting nodes with the aid of nodal interpolation techniques developed in the paper. Because of this distinctive feature, the LDQ method can be consistently applied to linear and nonlinear problems and is really a mesh-free method without the limitation in the solution domain of the conventional DQM. The effectiveness and efficiency of the method are validated by two simple numerical examples by solving boundary-value problems of a linear and a nonlinear partial differential equation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.