Numerical Solution of Two-Dimensional Nonlinear Unsteady Advection-Diffusion-Reaction Equations with Variable Coefficients

The advection-diffusion-reaction (ADR) equation is a fundamental mathematical model used to describe various processes in many different areas of science and engineering. Due to wide applicability of the ADR equation, finding accurate solution is very important to better understand a physical phenomenon represented by the equation. In this study, a numerical scheme for solving two-dimensional unsteady ADR equations with spatially varying velocity and diffusion coefficients is presented. The equations include nonlinear reaction terms. To discretize the ADR equations, the Crank–Nicolson finite difference method is employed with a uniform grid. The resulting nonlinear system of equations is solved using Newton’s method. At each iteration of Newton’s method, the Gauss–Seidel iterative method with sparse matrix computation is utilized to solve the block tridiagonal system and obtain the error correction vector. The consistency and stability of the numerical scheme are investigated. MATLAB codes are developed to implement this combined numerical approach. The validation of the scheme is verified by solving a two-dimensional advection-diffusion equation without reaction term. Numerical tests are provided to show the good performances of the proposed numerical scheme in simulation of ADR problems. The numerical scheme gives accurate results. The obtained numerical solutions are presented graphically. The result of this study may provide insights to apply numerical methods in solving comprehensive models of physical phenomena that capture the underlying situations.