The singular parabolic problem $u_t-\triangle u=\l{\frac{1+\d|\nabla u|^2}{(1-u)^2}}$ on a bounded domain $\O$ of $\Rn$ with Dirichlet boundary condition, models the Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) device with fringing field. In this paper, we focus on the quenching behavior of the solution to this equation. We first show that there exists a critical value $\l_\d^*>0$ such that if $0<\l<\l_\d^*$, all solutions exist globally; while for $\l>\l_\d^*$, all the solution will quench in finite time. The estimate of the quenching time in terms of large voltage $\l$ is investigated. Furthermore, the quenching set is a compact subset of $\O$, provided $\O$ is a convex bounded domain in $\mathbb{R}^n$. In particular, if the domain $\O$ is radially symmetric, then the origin is the only quenching point. We not only derive the one-side estimate of the quenching rate, but also further study the refined asymptotic behavior of the finite quenching solution.

No abstract uploaded!

Linear elliptic equations in composite media with anisotropic fibres are concerned. The media consist of a periodic set of anisotropic fibres with low conductivity, included in a connected matrix with high conductivity. Inside the anisotropic fibres, the conductivity in the longitudinal direction is relatively high compared with that in the transverse directions. The coefficients of the elliptic equations depend on the conductivity. This work is to derive the H\"older and the gradient $L^p$ estimates (uniformly in the period size of the set of anisotropic fibres as well as in the conductivity ratio of the fibres in the transverse directions to the connected matrix) for the solutions of the elliptic equations. Furthermore, it is shown that, inside the fibres, the solutions have higher regularity along the fibres than in the transverse directions.

A novel discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method is developed to solve timedependent bi-harmonic type equations involving fourth derivatives in one and multiple space dimensions. We present the spatial DG discretization based on a mixed formulation and central interface numerical fluxes so that the resulting semi-discrete schemes are L^2 stable even without interior penalty. For time discretization, we use Crank–Nicolson so that the resulting scheme is unconditionally stable and second order in time. We present the optimal L^2 error estimate of O(h^{k+1}) for polynomials of degree k for semi-discrete DG schemes, and the L2 error of O(h^{k+1} + (\Delta t)^2) for fully discrete DG schemes. Extensions to more general fourth order partial differential equations and cases with non-homogeneous boundary conditions are provided. Numerical results are presented to verify the stability and accuracy of the schemes. Finally, an application to the one-dimensional Swift–Hohenberg equation endowed with a decay free energy is presented.

This work considers the rigorous derivation of continuum models of step motion starting from a mesoscopic Burton-Cabrera-Frank (BCF) type model following the work [Xiang, SIAM J. Appl. Math. 2002]. We prove that as the lattice parameter goes to zero, for a finite time interval, a modified discrete model converges to the strong solution of the limiting PDE with first order convergence rate.