Discrete Galerkin method for Fredholm integro-differential equations with weakly singular kernels

Approximations to a solution and its derivatives of a boundary value problem of an nth order linear Fredholm integro-differential equation with weakly singular or other nonsmooth kernels are determined. These approximations are piecewise polynomial functions on special graded grids. For their finding a discrete Galerkin method and an integral equation reformulation of the boundary value problem are used. Optimal global convergence estimates are derived and an improvement of the convergence rate of the method for a special choice of parameters is obtained. To illustrate the theoretical results a collection of numerical results of a test problem is presented. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.