A new higher-order accurate numerical method for solving heat conduction in a double-layered film with the Neumann boundary condition (Q2875717)

The authors consider heat conduction in a thin film consisting of two layers divided by an interface. At the outer boundaries, Neumann conditions are prescribed, at the interface, continuity and Fick's law. Using higher-order smoothness inside the layers, they derive additional discrete interface conditions which admit the construction of a difference scheme of third order approximation in \(h\) at the inner and outer boundaries and of fourth-order approximation in \(h\) elsewhere. In proving convergence of order \(\tau^2+h^4\) of the fully discrete scheme they refer to an embedding result of the first author from 2012 which is contained already in the book of \textit{A. A. Samarskii} and \textit{V. B. Andreev} from 1976 translated to Chinese in 1984 (see the review of the French translation [Méthodes aux différences pour équations elliptiques. Moscou: Editions Mir. 307 p. (1978; Zbl 0377.35004)]). The final scheme is a Crank-Nicolson version and tridiagonally implicit working well as shown by a numerical example.