In this paper we study analytically and numerically a novel relaxation approximation for front evolution according to a curvature-dependent local law. In the Chapman-Enskog expansion, this relaxation approximation leads to the level-set equation for transport-dominated front propagation, which includes the mean curvature as the next-order term. This approach yields a new and possibly attractive way of calculating numerically the propagation of curvature-dependent fronts. Since the relaxation system is a symmetrizable, semilinear, and linearly convective hyperbolic system without singularities, the relaxation scheme captures the curvature-dependent front propagation without discretizing directly the complicated yet singular mean curvature term.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/markos_katsoulakis/46/
The published version is located at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0312(199912)52:12%3C1587::AID-CPA4%3E3.0.CO;2-A/abstract