Analysis of an augmented mixed‐primal formulation for the stationary Boussinesq problem

In this article, we propose and analyze a new mixed variational formulation for the stationary Boussinesq problem. Our method, which uses a technique previously applied to the Navier–Stokes equations, is based first on the introduction of a modified pseudostress tensor depending nonlinearly on the velocity through the respective convective term. Next, the pressure is eliminated, and an augmented approach for the fluid flow, which incorporates Galerkin‐type terms arising from the constitutive and equilibrium equations, and from the Dirichlet boundary condition, is coupled with a primal‐mixed scheme for the main equation modeling the temperature. In this way, the only unknowns of the resulting formulation are given by the aforementioned nonlinear pseudostress, the velocity, the temperature, and the normal derivative of the latter on the boundary. An equivalent fixed‐point setting is then introduced and the corresponding classical Banach Theorem, combined with the Lax–Milgram Theorem and the Babu?ka–Brezzi theory, are applied to prove the unique solvability of the continuous problem. In turn, the Brouwer and the Banach fixed‐point theorems are used to establish existence and uniqueness of solution, respectively, of the associated Galerkin scheme. In particular, Raviart–Thomas spaces of order k for the pseudostress, continuous piecewise polynomials of degree ≤ k+1 for the velocity and the temperature, and piecewise polynomials of degree ≤ k for the boundary unknown become feasible choices. Finally, we derive optimal a priori error estimates, and provide several numerical results illustrating the good performance of the augmented mixed‐primal finite element method and confirming the theoretical rates of convergence. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 32: 445–478, 2016     

An augmented stress‐based mixed finite element method for the steady state Navier‐Stokes equations with nonlinear viscosity

A new stress‐based mixed variational formulation for the stationary Navier‐Stokes equations with constant density and variable viscosity depending on the magnitude of the strain tensor, is proposed and analyzed in this work. Our approach is a natural extension of a technique applied in a recent paper by some of the authors to the same boundary value problem but with a viscosity that depends nonlinearly on the gradient of velocity instead of the strain tensor. In this case, and besides remarking that the strain‐dependence for the viscosity yields a more physically relevant model, we notice that to handle this nonlinearity we now need to incorporate not only the strain itself but also the vorticity as auxiliary unknowns. Furthermore, similarly as in that previous work, and aiming to deal with a suitable space for the velocity, the variational formulation is augmented with Galerkin‐type terms arising from the constitutive and equilibrium equations, the relations defining the two additional unknowns, and the Dirichlet boundary condition. In this way, and as the resulting augmented scheme can be rewritten as a fixed‐point operator equation, the classical Schauder and Banach theorems together with monotone operators theory are applied to derive the well‐posedness of the continuous and associated discrete schemes. In particular, we show that arbitrary finite element subspaces can be utilized for the latter, and then we derive optimal a priori error estimates along with the corresponding rates of convergence. Next, a reliable and efficient residual‐based a posteriori error estimator on arbitrary polygonal and polyhedral regions is proposed. The main tools used include Raviart‐Thomas and Clément interpolation operators, inverse and discrete inequalities, and the localization technique based on triangle‐bubble and edge‐bubble functions. Finally, several numerical essays illustrating the good performance of the method, confirming the reliability and efficiency of the a posteriori error estimator, and showing the desired behavior of the adaptive algorithm, are reported. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 33: 1692–1725, 2017     

A posteriori error analysis for solving the Navier‐Stokes problem and convection‐diffusion equation

In this article, we consider the finite element discretization of the Navier‐Stokes problem coupled with convection‐diffusion equations where both the viscosity and the diffusion coefficients depend on the temperature. Existence and uniqueness of a solution are established. We prove a posteriori error estimates.     

A posteriori error analysis for locally conservative mixed methods

In this work we present a theoretical analysis for a residual-type error estimator for locally conservative mixed methods. This estimator was first introduced by Braess and Verfürth for the Raviart-Thomas mixed finite element method working in mesh-dependent norms. We improve and extend their results to cover any locally conservative mixed method under minimal assumptions, in particular, avoiding the saturation assumption made by Braess and Verfürth. Our analysis also takes into account discontinuous coefficients with possibly large jumps across interelement boundaries. The main results are applied to the nonconforming finite element method and the interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin method as well as the mixed finite element method.

     

A posteriori error estimators for the steady incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

A residual-based a posteriori error estimator for finite element discretizations of the steady incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in the primitive variable formulation is discussed. Though the estimator is similar to existing ones, an alternate derivation is presented, involving an abstract estimate that may prove of some intrinsic value. The estimator is particularized to Hood–Taylor and modified Hood–Taylor finite elements and proved to be a global upper bound (up to a positive multiplicative constant) of the true error. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the performance of the resulting mesh adaptation process. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 13: 561–574, 1997     

A posteriori error estimator for expanded mixed hybrid methods

In this article, we construct an a posteriori error estimator for expanded mixed hybrid finite‐element methods for second‐order elliptic problems. An a posteriori error analysis yields reliable and efficient estimate based on residuals. Several numerical examples are presented to show the effectivity of our error indicators. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 23: 330–349, 2007     

A posteriori error estimate for the Stokes–Darcy system

We consider the a posteriori error estimates for finite element approximations of the Stokes–Darcy system. The finite element spaces adopted are the Hood–Taylor element for the velocity and the pressure in fluid region and conforming piecewise quadratic element for the pressure in porous media region. The a posteriori error estimate is based on a suitable evaluation on the residual of the finite element solution. It is proven that the a posteriori error estimate provided in this paper is both reliable and efficient. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A posteriori estimates for the Stokes eigenvalue problem

We consider the Stokes eigenvalue problem. For the eigenvalues we derive both upper and lower a‐posteriori error bounds. The estimates are verified by numerical computations. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2009     

A posterior error analysis for the nonconforming discretization of Stokes eigenvalue problem

In this paper, we present a posteriori error estimator for the nonconforming finite element approximation, including using Crouzeix–Raviart element and extended Crouzeix–Raviart element, of the Stokes eigenvalue problem. With the technique of Helmholtz decomposition, we first give out a posteriori error estimator and prove it as the global upper bound and local lower bound of the approximation error. Then, by deleting a jump term in the indicator, another simpler but equivalent indicator is obtained. Some numerical experiments are provided to verify our analysis.     

A posteriori error estimates of mixed DG finite element methods for linear parabolic equations

In this article, we analyse a posteriori error estimates of mixed finite element discretizations for linear parabolic equations. The space discretization is done using the order λ?≥?1 Raviart–Thomas mixed finite elements, whereas the time discretization is based on discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods (r?≥?1). Using the duality argument, we derive a posteriori l ^∞(L ²) error estimates for the scalar function, assuming that only the underlying mesh is static.     

A posteriori error estimates of stabilized finite volume method for the Stokes equations

In this work, the residual‐type posteriori error estimates of stabilized finite volume method are studied for the steady Stokes problem based on two local Gauss integrations. By using the residuals between the source term and numerical solutions, the computable global upper and local lower bounds for the errors of velocity in H¹ norm and pressure in L² norm are derived. Furthermore, a global upper bound of u ? u_h in L²‐norm is also derived. Finally, some numerical experiments are provided to verify the performances of the established error estimators. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A posteriori estimates for approximations of time-dependent Stokes equations

Charalambos Makridakis ^{In this paper, we derive a posteriori error estimates for space-discreteapproximations of the time-dependent Stokes equations. By usingan appropriate Stokes reconstruction operator, we are able towrite an auxiliary error equation, in pointwise form, that satisfiesthe exact divergence-free condition. Thus, standard energy estimatesfrom partial differential equation theory can be applied directly,and yield a posteriori estimates that rely on available correspondingestimates for the stationary Stokes equation. Estimates of optimalorder in L(L2) and L(H1) for the velocity are derived for finite-elementand finite-volume approximations.}     

A posteriori error analysis for nonconforming approximations of an anisotropic elliptic problem

We develop in this article an a posteriori error estimator for the P₁‐nonconforming finite element approximation, for a diffusion‐reaction equation. We adopt the error in a constitutive law approach in two and three dimensional space, for not necessary piecewise constant data of problems. The efficiency and the reliability of our estimators are proved, neither Helmholtz decomposition of the error nor saturation assumption. The constants are explicitly given, which prove the robustness of these estimators. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 31: 950–976, 2015     

New error estimates of nonconforming mixed finite element methods for the Stokes problem

In this paper, we revisit the classical error estimates of nonconforming Crouzeix–Raviart type finite elements for the Stokes equations. By introducing some quasi‐interpolation operators and using the special properties of these nonconforming elements, it is proved that their consistency errors can be bounded by their approximation errors together with a high‐order term, especially which can be of arbitrary order provided that f in the right‐hand side is piecewise smooth enough. Furthermore, we show an interesting result that both in the energy norm and L² norm the consistency errors are dominated by the approximation errors of their finite element spaces. As byproducts, we derive the error estimates in both energy and L² norms under the regularity assumption ( u ,p) ∈ H ^{1 + s}(Ω) × H^s(Ω) with any s ∈ (0,1], which fills the gap in the a priori error estimate of these nonconforming elements with low regularity . Furthermore, a robust convergence is proved with minimal regularity assumption s = 0. These results seem to be missing in the literature. Numerical tests are provided, confirming the analysis, especially the new results on the L² convergence. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On a hierarchical error estimator combined with a stabilized method for the Navier–Stokes equations

This work combines two complementary strategies for solving the steady incompressible Navier–Stokes model with a zeroth‐order term, namely, a stabilized finite element method and a mesh–refinement approach based on an error estimator. First, equal order interpolation spaces are adopted to approximate both the velocity and the pressure while stability is recovered within the stabilization approach. Also designed to handle advection dominated flows under zeroth‐order term influence, the stabilized method incorporates a new parameter with a threefold asymptotic behavior. Mesh adaptivity driven by a new hierarchical error estimator and built on the stabilized method is the second ingredient. The estimator construction process circumvents the saturation assumption by using an enhancing space strategy which is shown to be equivalent to the error. Several numerical tests validate the methodology. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2011     

A superconvergent nonconforming mixed finite element method for the Navier–Stokes equations

The superconvergence for a nonconforming mixed finite element approximation of the Navier–Stokes equations is analyzed in this article. The velocity field is approximated by the constrained nonconforming rotated Q₁ (CNRQ₁) element, and the pressure is approximated by the piecewise constant functions. Under some regularity assumptions, the superconvergence estimates for both the velocity in broken H¹‐norm and the pressure in L²‐norm are obtained. Some numerical examples are presented to demonstrate our theoretical results. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 32: 646–660, 2016     

A new adaptive mixed finite element method based on residual type a posterior error estimates for the Stokes eigenvalue problem

In this article, we combine mixed finite element method, multiscale discretization, and Rayleigh quotient iteration to propose a new adaptive algorithm based on residual type a posterior error estimates for the Stokes eigenvalue problem. Both reliability and efficiency of the error indicator are proved. The efficiency of the algorithm is also investigated using Chen's Innovation Finite Element Method (iFEM) package. Numerical results are satisfying.© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 31: 31–53, 2015     

A posteriori error estimation for the dual mixed finite element method of the elasticity problem in a polygonal domain

In this article, we propose a residual based reliable and efficient error estimator for the new dual mixed finite element method of the elasticity problem in a polygonal domain, introduced by M. Farhloul and M. Fortin. With the help of a specific generalized Helmholtz decomposition of the error on the strain tensor and the classical decomposition of the error on the gradient of the displacements, we show that our global error estimator is reliable. Efficiency of our estimator follows by using classical inverse estimates. The lower and upper error bounds obtained are uniform with respect to the Lamé coefficient λ, in particular avoiding locking phenomena. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2005.     

A posteriori error estimation and error control for finite element approximations of the time-dependent Navier–Stokes equations

We present an approach to estimate numerical errors in finite element approximations of the time-dependent Navier–Stokes equations along with a strategy to control these errors. The error estimators and the error control procedure are based on the residuals of the Navier–Stokes equations, which are shown to be comparable to error components in the velocity variable. The present methodology applies to the estimation of numerical errors due to the spatial discretization only. Its performance is demonstrated for two-dimensional channel flows past a cylinder in the periodic regime.