Mathematical Sciences Department Seminar
Speaker: Kim Savinon, University of Connecticut
Tuesday, January 21
11:00am - 12:00pm
Stratton 202
Title: What is the Finite Element Method?
Abstract: It is well known that partial differential equations and even some ordinary differential equations can be nearly impossible to solve directly. This naturally leads to the question: is there a way to approximate the solution to a differential equation with boundary conditions numerically? The Finite Element Method (FEM) is a numerical method that will give us an approximation of the solution to a differential equation.During this talk, we will introduce a boundary value problem and discuss the existence and uniqueness of our finite element solution. Additionally, we will introduce the finite element space and its nodal basis functions. FEM Matlab code will be presented toward the end.