1. A brief description of these methods.

FEM:
The finite-element method is a computational method that subdivides a CAD model into very
small but finite-sized elements of geometrically simple shapes. The collection of all these
simple shapes constitutes the so-called finite-element mesh.
The next step is to take a system of field equations, mathematically represented by partial
differential equations (PDEs) that describe the physics you are interested in, and formulate
these equations for each element. This is handled by approximating the fields within each
element as a simple function, such as a linear or quadratic polynomial, with a finite number of
degrees of freedom (DOFs). This gives an approximate local description of the physics by a
set of simple linear (but sometimes nonlinear) equations. When the contributions from all
elements are assembled you end up with a large sparse matrix equation system that can be
solved by any of a number of well-known sparse matrix solvers.

FDM:
The finite-difference method is the most direct approach to discretizing partial differential
equations. You consider a point in space where you take the continuum representation of the
equations and replace it with a set of discrete equations, called finite-difference equations. The
finite-difference method is typically defined on a regular grid and this fact can be used for very
efficient solution methods.

FVM:
First, the CAD model is divided into very small but limited-sized elements with simple
geometric shapes. These elements are called units.
The finite volume method is based on the fact that many laws of physics are conservation
laws—a cell that enters one side needs to leave the same cell on the other side. With this idea,
you will end up with a formula consisting of flux conservation equations defined on average
on the cell.
2. Explain similarities and the key differences

Each method is quite similar in that it represents a systematic numerical method for solving
PDEs. One important difference is the ease of implementation. A common opinion is that the
finite-difference method is the easiest to implement and the finite-element method the most
difficult. One reason for this may be that the finite-element method requires quite sophisticated
mathematics for its formulation.

 Finite-Element Method: Advantages and Disadvantages

One reason for the finite element method’s success in multi-physics analysis is that it is a very
general method. Solving the resulting equation systems are the same or very similar to well-
known and efficient methods used for structural and electromagnetics analysis. Another reason
for the method’s success is that it makes it easy to “increase the order of the elements” so that
the physics fields can be approximated very accurately. This typically corresponds to locally
approximating the physics fields with polynomials of “higher order,” such as second- and third-
degree polynomials, or higher. This technique is often critical, for example, in the case of
accurate stress analysis.
If we consider the example of stress analysis, it is quite common that there are important stress
concentrations close to some of the corners of a mechanical part. In this case, the finite-element
method allows for two different ways of increasing the accuracy of the solution around this
corner. One way is to increase the order of the elements, as described earlier. Another method
is to locally refine the mesh close to that corner; the element density increases locally. The finer
the mesh (i.e., more elements), the more accurate approximation one gets for the stress field
around the corner of interest. Both techniques are used in finite-element software and are
frequently made automatic from the user’s perspective. This is known as “adaptive mesh
refinement.”
Another advantage with the finite-element method, which is particularly important for multi-
physics analysis, is that you can combine different kinds of functions that approximate the
solution within each element. This is called mixed formulations. This is important, for example,
in the case of electromagnetic heating. The physics and mathematics require one type of
function for the electromagnetic field and another type of function for heat transfer; they both
need to be tightly coupled to get an accurate solution and for the solution to converge. Mixed
formulations are straightforward to handle the finite-element method, but difficult or
impossible with other methods.
The benefits with both the finite-element method and the finite-volume method are that curved
and irregular CAD geometries are handled in a natural way.
However, the mathematics behind the finite-element method is quite advanced and thus the
method requires mathematical expertise for its implementation. Implementations of finite-
difference and finite-volume methods are comparatively straightforward.
For certain time-dependent simulations, one needs to use so-called explicit solvers for reasons
of efficiency. Implementing such solver techniques is more difficult for the finite-element
method than for the finite-difference and finite-volume methods. However, this has
successfully been commercialized in some cases, such as in crash simulations.
 Finite-Difference Method: Advantages and Disadvantages
The finite-difference method is defined dimension per dimension; this makes it easy to increase
the “element order” to get higher-order accuracy. If you can fit the simulation in a rectangular
or box-shaped geometry using a regular grid, efficient implementations are much easier than
for finite-element and finite-volume methods. Regular grids are useful for very-large-scale
simulations on supercomputers often used in, as mentioned before, meteorological,
seismological, and astrophysical simulations.
With the finite-difference method, you may easily run into problems handling curved
boundaries for the purpose of defining the boundary conditions. Boundary conditions are
needed to truncate the computational domain. They represent communication with the
surrounding world, which is the part that you do not want included in your simulation. If one
can overcome the boundary-condition problem on curved boundaries, the method gives very
efficient and high quality results.
For computations that need high accuracy, the extra effort in making boundary-fitted meshes
and the associated complications of such meshes for the implementation may be worth it.
Examples include Formula 1 car computational-fluid-dynamic (CFD) simulations and space-
shuttle CFD simulations. The finite-difference method is more difficult to use for handling
material discontinuities. In addition, it does not lend itself for local grid refinement or anything
similar to “adaptive mesh refinement.” This may be needed to resolve local rapid variations in
solutions such as around a corner of a complex shape, as described earlier.

The general forms are:

First-order forward difference 𝑓(𝑥 + ℎ) − 𝑓(𝑥 )
First-order backward difference 𝑓(𝑥 ) − 𝑓(𝑥 − ℎ)
First-order central difference 𝑓(𝑥 + ℎ) − 𝑓(𝑥 − ℎ)
( ) ( )
First-order forward difference quotient 𝑓′(𝑥 ) =

( ) ( )
First-order backward difference quotient 𝑓′(𝑥 ) =

( ) ( )
First-order central difference quotient 𝑓′(𝑥 ) =

( ) ( ) ( )
Second-order central difference quotient 𝑓′′(𝑥 ) =
 Finite-Volume Method: Advantages and Disadvantages
The finite-volume method is a natural choice for CFD problems, since the partial differential
equations you have to solve for CFD are conservation laws. However, both finite differences
and finite elements can also be used for CFD. Efficient technology for CFD with the finite-
element method has become increasingly popular over the last 10 to 15 years. Techniques for
CFD with the finite-difference and finite-volume method have been known and used much
longer.
The finite-volume method’s strength is that it only needs to do flux evaluation for the cell
boundaries. This also holds for nonlinear problems, which makes it extra powerful for robust
handling of (nonlinear) conservation laws appearing in transport problems.
The local accuracy of the finite-volume method, such as close to a corner of interest, can be
increased by refining the mesh around that corner, similar to the finite-element method.
However, the functions that approximate the solution when using the finite-volume method
cannot be easily made of higher order. This is a disadvantage of the finite-volume method
compared to the finite-element and finite-difference methods.

3. What decision-making would (or should) inform the choice over which discretization
method to employ for a given problem.

Finite-element method:
All kinds of structural analysis, heat transfer, chemical engineering, electromagnetics
(including electrostatics, magnetostatics, low-frequency electromagnetics, and frequency-
domain high-frequency electromagnetic waves), multi-physics, and CFD.

Finite-difference method:
Weather calculations, astrophysics, seismology, physical realism in computer graphics, and
special effects.

Finite-volume method:
CFD, heat transfer, and chemical engineering
Appendix Ⅰ FDM Solutions For Incompressible and Inviscid Flow around a flat plate

Incompressible and inviscid flow is an ideal flow model in fluid mechanics. Considering the
analysis of simple incompressible flow of flat inviscid turbulence and the realization of related
calculation examples will help us understand the difference idea and iterative idea in computational
fluid dynamics.
In this report, we use the finite difference method and the Gauss Seidel iteration method, the
control equation adopts the form of vortex current function, the algorithm implementation mainly
adopts python languages, and the post-processing adopts Excel rendering.
Finally, we adopt the Von Neumann method to analyze the convergence properties and the
number of iteration steps, and discuss the calculation accuracy and speed
Appendix Ⅱ FEM solution for nodal forces of bar elements

Taking the classical simple statically indeterminate truss element as an example, the FEM
method is used for analysis, and the solution results of structural mechanics method are used as
reference values to compare and analyze the accuracy, timeless and applicability of FEM and FDM
methods.
FVM is analyzed by the method in Appendix I, and the general finite element solution library
FEM is designed as FEM Ipynb, the main body solution process code as solvefem.Ipynb, and the
physical information of the problem and the output results of each stage of the solution process have
been displayed and saved in the Jupyter Notebook file:solvefem.Ipynb