Numerical and theoretical study of a Dual Mesh Method using finite volume schemes for two phase flow problems in porous media

Summary. In this paper we are interested in two phase flow problems in porous media. We use a Dual Mesh Method to discretize this problem with finite volume schemes. In a simplified case (elliptic - hyperbolic system) we prove the convergence of approximate solutions to the exact solutions. We use the Dual Mesh Method in physically complex problems (heterogeneous cases with non constant total mobility). We validate numerically the Dual Mesh Method on practical examples by computing error estimates for different test-cases. Received March 21, 1997 / Revised version received October 13, 1997