Time-stepping schemes for moving grid finite elements applied to reaction–diffusion systems on fixed and growing domains

In this paper, we illustrate the application of time-stepping schemes to reaction–diffusion systems on fixed and continuously growing domains by use of finite element and moving grid finite element methods. We present two schemes for our studies, namely a first-order backward Euler finite differentiation formula coupled with a special form of linearisation of the nonlinear reaction terms (1-SBEM) and a second-order semi-implicit backward finite differentiation formula (2-SBDF) with no linearisation of the reaction terms. Our results conclude that for the type of reaction–diffusion systems considered in this paper, the 1-SBEM is more stable than the 2-SBDF scheme and that the 1-SBEM scheme has a larger region of stability (at least by a factor of 10) than that of the 2-SBDF scheme. As a result, the 1-SBEM scheme becomes a natural choice when solving reaction–diffusion problems on continuously deforming domains.