Variational discretization of axisymmetric curvature flows (Q1728089)

The paper is concerned with the analysis of numerical schemes for the parameter approximation of axisymmetric curvature flows. Since axisymmetry enables dimensionality reduction of the governing equations, many numerical methods have been proposed for curvature flows under the assumption of axisymmetry. However, most of these methods have not been analyzed yet. \par The authors derive several weak formulations, propose spatial discretization and discuss stability and equidistribution properties of the resulting semidiscrete scheme. Then they focus on two fully discrete schemes. The first scheme is linear and the authors prove the existence and uniqueness of its solution. The second scheme is a mildly nonlinear scheme that is unconditionally stable. The authors also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of other fully discrete schemes. Numerical experiments are presented to confirm the theoretical results and illustrate the efficiency of the methods.