Thread: Numerical solutions to the transport equation

Hi everyone,

I have an assignment from my professor for 3 weeks from now. It is about solving the transport equation, u_t+c*u_x=0, using numerical schemes in matlab. Unfortunately, I have never used matlab before and the lecturer has only gone over very basic techniques in the lecture. Is there anyone out there who has done this before and could offer me some advice as to how I would go about doing this? Thanks

ok, a more simple question, can anyone out there make a 3d plot/mesh of u,x and t from this code? :

clear all
clc
clf
% First set the initial parameters.
p=0; % start of computational domain
q=100; % end of computational domain
v=1; % water speed
N=101; % number of grid points
dx=(q-p)/(N-1); % spatial step size
x = p: dx : q; % vector of grid points
u0=zeros(1,N); % vector of initial u values filled with zeros
for i=1:N
u0(i)=finitial(x(i)-0); % initial conditions
end
%
dt=0.3; % fixed time step
ntimesteps=200; % number of time steps
r =v*dt/dx;
%
u=zeros(1,N); % define correct sized numerical solution array
exact=zeros(1,N); % define correct sized exact solution array
%
% Begin the time marching algorithm
%
for n=1:ntimesteps
t=n*dt; % current time for outputted solution
for i=1:N
exact(i)=finitial(x(i)-v*t); % exact solution at time t
end
u0=[u0(1) u0]; % insert ghost value (appropriate to numerial scheme)
for i=2:N+1
u(i)=u0(i)-r*(u0(i)-u0(i-1)); % backward difference algorithm
end
plot(x,u(2:N+1),'r',x,exact,'k') % plot (omitting ghost values) of numerical and exact solutions
xlabel('x')
ylabel('concentration u')
title('comparison of solutions to du/dt + v du/dx = 0, + numerical (FOU), o analytical')
pause(0.03) % pause in seconds between plots
u0=u(2:N+1); % copy solution to initial conditions for next iteration
u=[]; % empty the solution vector (actually it will be overwritten)
end