Node replacement strategy

In this section, we have seen how one may formulate numerical strategies for confronting the types of boundary value problems that arise in the continuum description of materials. The key point is the replacement of the problem involving unknown continuum fields with a discrete reckoning of the problem in which only a discrete set of unknowns at particular points (i.e. the nodes) are to be determined. In the next chapter we will undertake the consideration of the methods of quantum mechanics, and in this setting will find once again that the finite element method offers numerical flexibility in solving differential equations. 

Another strategy for deriving nets is to take a basic net and replace the nodes by a set of nodes with equivalent total connectivity. For example, in the... 

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