Symbolic Derivation of Finite Difference Approximations for the Three-Dimensional Poisson Equation

Abstract

A symbolic procedure for deriving various finite difference approximations for the three-dimensional Poisson equation is described. Based on the software package Mathematica, we utilize for the formulation local solutions of the differential equation and obtain the standard second-order scheme (7-point), three fourth-order finite difference schemes (15-point, 19-point, 21-point), and one sixth-order scheme (27-point). The symbolic method is simple and can be used to obtain the finite difference approximations for other partial differential equations. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.