Convergence analysis of sectional methods for solving aggregation population balance equations: The fixed pivot technique

In this paper, we introduce the convergence analysis of the fixed pivot technique given by S. Kumar and Ramkrishna (1996) [28] for the nonlinear aggregation population balance equations which are of substantial interest in many areas of science: colloid chemistry, aerosol physics, astrophysics, polymer science, oil recovery dynamics, and mathematical biology. In particular, we investigate the convergence for five different types of uniform and non-uniform meshes which turns out that the fixed pivot technique is second order convergent on a uniform and non-uniform smooth meshes. Moreover, it yields first order convergence on a locally uniform mesh. Finally, the analysis exhibits that the method does not converge on an oscillatory and non-uniform random meshes. Mathematical results of the convergence analysis are also demonstrated numerically. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.