On numerical solution of two-dimensional variable-order fractional diffusion equation arising in transport phenomena

In recent years, the application of variable-order (VO) fractional differential equations for describing complex physical phenomena ranging from biology, hydrology, mechanics and viscoelasticity to fluid dynamics has become one of the most hot topics in the context of scientific modeling. An interesting aspect of VO operators is their capability to address the behavior of scientific and engineering systems with time and spatially varying properties. The VO fractional diffusion equation is a fundamental model that allows transitions among sub-diffusive, diffusive and super-diffusive behaviors without altering the underlying governing equations. In this paper, we considered the two-dimensional fractional diffusion equation with the Caputo time VO derivative, which is essential for describing anomalous diffusion in real-world complex systems. A new Crank-Nicolson (C-N) difference scheme and an efficient explicit decoupled group (EDG) method were proposed to solve the problem under consideration. The proposed EDG method is based on a skewed difference scheme in conjunction with a grouping procedure of the solution grid points. Special attention was devoted to investigating the stability and convergence of the proposed methods. Three numerical examples with known exact analytical solutions were provided to illustrate our considerations. The proposed methods were shown to be stable and convergent theoretically as well as numerically. In addition, a comparative study was done between the EDG method and the C-N difference scheme. It was found that the proposed methods are accurate in simulating the considered problem, while the EDG method is superior to the C-N difference method in terms of Central Processing Unit (CPU) timing, verifying the efficiency of the former method in solving the VO problem.