On direct methods for the discretization of a heat-conduction equation using spline functions (Q1364681)

The author applies two numerical methods for solving the nonhomogeneous heat-conduction equation with nonhomogeneous boundary conditions -- namely the finite element homogeneous method and the Galerkin method. Both these methods of discretization transform the heat equation to systems of ordinary differential equations in time, respectively. The stiffness matrices of these two systems turn out to be the same. They are convenient for computer application as they are sparse, banded and symmetric.