Choice of finite-difference schemes in solving coefficient inverse problems

Various choices of a finite-difference scheme for approximating the heat diffusion equation in solving a three-dimensional coefficient inverse problem were studied. A comparative analysis was conducted for several alternating direction schemes, such as locally one-dimensional, Douglas–Rachford, and Peaceman–Rachford schemes, as applied to nonlinear problems for the three-dimensional heat equation with temperature-dependent coefficients. Each numerical method was used to compute the temperature distribution inside a parallelepiped. The methods were compared in terms of the accuracy of the resulting solution and the computation time required for achieving the prescribed accuracy on a computer.