A class of finite element methods based on orthonormal,compactly supported wavelets

This paper develops a class of finite elements for compactly supported, shift-invariant functions that satisfy a dyadic refinement equation. Commonly referred to as wavelets, these basis functions have been shown to be remarkably well-suited for integral operator compression, but somewhat more difficult to employ for the representation of arbitrary boundary conditions in the solution of partial differential equations. The current paper extends recent results for treating periodized partial differential equations on unbounded domains in R ⁿ, and enables the solution of Neumann and Dirichlet variational boundary value problems on a class of bounded domains. Tensor product, wavelet-based finite elements are constructed. The construction of the wavelet-based finite elements is achieved by employing the solution of an algebraic eigenvalue problem derived from the dyadic refinement equation characterizing the wavelet, from normalization conditions arising from moment equations satisfied by the wavelet, and from dyadic refinement relations satisfied by the elemental domain. The resulting finite elements can be viewed as generalizations of the connection coefficients employed in the wavelet expansion of periodic differential operators. While the construction carried out in this paper considers only the orthonormal wavelet system derived by Daubechies, the technique is equally applicable for the generation of tensor product elements derived from Coifman wavelets, or any other orthonormal compactly supported wavelet system with polynomial reproducing properties.Research supported in part by NASA Langley Research Center, Computational Structural Mechanics Branch, Jerry Housner