Numerical analysis of the quasistatic thermoviscoelastic thermistor problem

Departamento de Matemática Aplicada, Facultade de Matemáticas, Campus Sur s/n, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain. jramon@usc.es

Received: 13 June 2005

Abstract

In this work, the quasistatic thermoviscoelastic thermistor problem is considered. The thermistor model describes the combination of the effects due to the heat, electrical current conduction and Joule's heat generation. The variational formulation leads to a coupled system of nonlinear variational equations for which the existence of a weak solution is recalled. Then, a fully discrete algorithm is introduced based on the finite element method to approximate the spatial variable and an Euler scheme to discretize the time derivatives. Error estimates are derived and, under suitable regularity assumptions, the linear convergence of the scheme is deduced. Finally, some numerical simulations are performed in order to show the behaviour of the algorithm.