  In this paper, we develop regularized discrete least squares collocation and
finite volume methods for solving two-dimensional nonlinear time-dependent
partial differential equations on irregular domains. The solution is
approximated using tensor product cubic spline basis functions defined on a
background rectangular (interpolation) mesh, which leads to high spatial
accuracy and straightforward implementation, and establishes a solid base for
extending the computational framework to three-dimensional problems. A
semi-implicit time-stepping method is employed to transform the nonlinear
partial differential equation into a linear boundary value problem. A key
finding of our study is that the newly proposed mesh-free finite volume method
based on circular control volumes reduces to the collocation method as the
radius limits to zero. Both methods produce a large constrained least-squares
problem that must be solved at each time step in the advancement of the
solution. We have found that regularization yields a relatively
well-conditioned system that can be solved accurately using QR factorization.
An extensive numerical investigation is performed to illustrate the
effectiveness of the present methods, including the application of the new
method to a coupled system of time-fractional partial differential equations
having different fractional indices in different (irregularly shaped) regions
of the solution domain.
