Comparative Study of Some Numerical Methods for the Burgers–Huxley Equation

Abstract

In this paper, we construct four numerical methods to solve the Burgers–Huxley equation with specified initial and boundary conditions. The four methods are two novel versions of nonstandard finite difference schemes (NSFD1 and NSFD2), explicit exponential finite difference method (EEFDM) and fully implicit exponential finite difference method (FIEFDM). These two classes of numerical methods are popular in the mathematical biology community and it is the first time that such a comparison is made between nonstandard and exponential finite difference schemes. Moreover, the use of both nonstandard and exponential finite difference schemes are very new for the Burgers–Huxley equations. We considered eleven different combination for the parameters controlling diffusion, advection and reaction, which give rise to four different regimes. We obtained stability region or condition for positivity. The performances of the four methods are analysed by computing absolute errors, relative errors, L 1 and L ∞ errors and CPU time.

Keywords

• burgers–huxley equation
• nonstandard finite difference method
• explicit exponential finite difference method
• fully implicit exponential finite difference method
• absolute error
• relative error.