We introduce the \emph{multivariate decomposition finite element method} (MDFEM) for elliptic PDEs with lognormal diffusion coefficients, that is, when the diffusion coefficient has the form $a=\exp(Z)$ where $Z$ is a Gaussian random field defined by an infinite series expansion $Z(\bsy) = \sum_{j \ge 1} y_j \, \phi_j$ with $y_j \sim \calN(0,1)$ and a given sequence of functions $\{\phi_j\}_{j \ge 1}$. We use the MDFEM to approximate the expected value of a linear functional of the solution of the PDE which is an infinite-dimensional integral over the parameter space. The proposed algorithm uses the \emph{multivariate decomposition method} (MDM) to compute the infinite-dimensional integral by a decomposition into finite-dimensional integrals, which we resolve using \emph{quasi-Monte Carlo} (QMC) methods, and for which we use the \emph{finite element method} (FEM) to solve different instances of the PDE.
We develop higher-order quasi-Monte Carlo rules for integration over the finite-di\-men\-si\-onal Euclidean space with respect to the Gaussian distribution by use of a truncation strategy. By linear transformations of interlaced polynomial lattice rules from the unit cube to a multivariate box of the Euclidean space we achieve higher-order convergence rates for functions belonging to a class of \emph{anchored Gaussian Sobolev spaces} while taking into account the truncation error. These cubature rules are then used in the MDFEM algorithm.
Under appropriate conditions, the MDFEM achieves higher-order convergence rates in term of error versus cost, i.e., to achieve an accuracy of $O(\epsilon)$ the computational cost is $O(\epsilon^{-1/\lambda-\dd/\lambda}) = O(\epsilon^{-(p^* + \dd/\tau)/(1-p^*)})$ where $\epsilon^{-1/\lambda}$ and $\epsilon^{-\dd/\lambda}$ are respectively the cost of the quasi-Monte Carlo cubature and the finite element approximations, with $\dd = d \, (1+\ddelta)$ for some $\ddelta \ge 0$ and $d$ the physical dimension, and $0 < p^* \le (2 + \dd/\tau)^{-1}$ is a parameter representing the sparsity of $\{\phi_j\}_{j \ge 1}$.
Application of the hp-finite element method to modeling thermal fields of high voltage underground cables buried in multi-layer soil
