A finite element formulation satisfying the discrete geometric conservation law based on averaged Jacobians

In this article, a new methodology for developing discrete geometric conservation law (DGCL) compliant formulations is presented. It is carried out in the context of the finite element method for general advective–diffusive systems on moving domains using an ALE scheme. There is an extensive literature about the impact of DGCL compliance on the stability and precision of time integration methods. In those articles, it has been proved that satisfying the DGCL is a necessary and sufficient condition for any ALE scheme to maintain on moving grids the nonlinear stability properties of its fixed‐grid counterpart. However, only a few works proposed a methodology for obtaining a compliant scheme. In this work, a DGCL compliant scheme based on an averaged ALE Jacobians formulation is obtained. This new formulation is applied to the θ family of time integration methods. In addition, an extension to the three‐point backward difference formula is given. With the aim to validate the averaged ALE Jacobians formulation, a set of numerical tests are performed. These tests include 2D and 3D diffusion problems with different mesh movements and the 2D compressible Navier–Stokes equations. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.