Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

5-31-1985

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering - (M.S.)

Department

Mechanical Engineering

First Advisor

Sachio Nakamura

Second Advisor

Rong-Yaw Chen

Third Advisor

Benedict C. Sun

Abstract

Skyline technique is known to be one of the most efficient numerical methods for solving symmetric and positive definite simultaneous linear algebraic equations whose coefficient matrix is banded and sparse. This technique considers non-zero elements below the skyline only and manipulates Gaussian elimination process efficiently.

In recent years, the finite element methods applied to discretize the space domain has been successfully extended to time domain discretization. This new technique, temporal finite elements, makes it possible to numerically solve initial value problems in a manner similar to boundary value problems.

This thesis introduces skyline technique to one of the temporal finite element methods, Least Square Temporal Finite Element Method, and develops second version of LSTFEM by replacing cholesky method of the original version. Accuracy and computation time are compared for three computer programs, (1) LSTFEM with skyline technique, (2) LSTFEM with cholesky method, and (3) DE using multi-step method. It is concluded that LSTFEM with skyline technique is a promising numerical method for solving linear initial value problem.

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