A weak Galerkin finite element method for a coupled Stokes‐Darcy problem

In this article, we introduce and analyze a weak Galerkin finite element method for numerically solving the coupling of fluid flow with porous media flow. Flows are governed by the Stokes equations in primal velocity‐pressure formulation and Darcy equation in the second order primary formulation, respectively, and the corresponding transmission conditions are given by mass conservation, balance of normal forces, and the Beavers‐Joseph‐Saffman law. By using the weak Galerkin approach, we consider the two‐dimensional problem with the piecewise constant elements for approximations of the velocity, pressure, and hydraulic head. Stability and optimal error estimates are obtained. Finally, we provide several numerical results illustrating the good performance of the proposed scheme and confirming the optimal order of convergence provided by the weak Galerkin approximation. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 33: 1352–1373, 2017     

On a decoupled algorithm for solving a finite element problem for the approximation of viscoelastic fluid flow

Summary. The aim of this work is to study a decoupled algorithm of a fixed point for solving a finite element (FE) problem for the approximation of viscoelastic fluid flow obeying an Oldroyd B differential model. The interest for this algorithm lies in its applications to numerical simulation and in the cost of computing. Furthermore it is easy to bring this algorithm into play. The unknowns are the viscoelastic part of the extra stress tensor, the velocity and the pressure. We suppose that the solution is sufficiently smooth and small. The approximation of stress, velocity and pressure are resp. discontinuous, continuous, continuous FE. Upwinding needed for convection of , is made by discontinuous FE. The method consists to solve alternatively a transport equation for the stress, and a Stokes like problem for velocity and pressure. Previously, results of existence of the solution for the approximate problem and error bounds have been obtained using fixed point techniques with coupled algorithm. In this paper we show that the mapping of the decoupled fixed point algorithm is locally (in a neighbourhood of ) contracting and we obtain existence, unicity (locally) of the solution of the approximate problem and error bounds. Received July 29, 1994 / Revised version received March 13, 1995     

Approximation of the unsteady Brinkman‐Forchheimer equations by the pressure stabilization method

In this work, we propose and analyze the pressure stabilization method for the unsteady incompressible Brinkman‐Forchheimer equations. We present a time discretization scheme which can be used with any consistent finite element space approximation. Second‐order error estimate is proven. Some numerical results are also given.© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 33: 1949–1965, 2017     

Optimal error estimates of a decoupled scheme based on two-grid finite element for mixed Navier-Stokes/Darcy Model

Although the two-grid finite element decoupled scheme for mixed Navier-Stokes/Darcy model in literatures has given the numerical results of optimal convergence order, the theoretical analysis only obtain the optimal error order for the porous media flow and a non-optimal error order for the fluid flow. In this article, we give a more rigorous of the error analysis for the fluid flow and obtain the optimal error estimates of the velocity and the pressure.     

Analysis of an Euler implicit‐mixed finite element scheme for reactive solute transport in porous media

In this article, we analyze an Euler implicit‐mixed finite element scheme for a porous media solute transport model. The transporting flux is not assumed given, but obtained by solving numerically the Richards equation, a model for subsurface fluid flow. We prove the convergence of the scheme by estimating the error in terms of the discretization parameters. In doing so we take into account the numerical error occurring in the approximation of the fluid flow. The article, is concluded by numerical experiments, which are in good agreement with the theoretical estimates. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2010     

Reconstructed Discontinuous Approximation to Stokes Equation in a Sequential Least Squares Formulation

We propose a new least squares finite element method to solve the Stokes problem with two sequential steps. The approximation spaces are constructed by the patch reconstruction with one unknown per element. For the first step, we reconstruct an approximation space consisting of piecewise curl-free polynomials with zero trace. By this space, we minimize a least squares functional to obtain the numerical approximations to the gradient of the velocity and the pressure. In the second step, we minimize another least squares functional to give the solution to the velocity in the reconstructed piecewise divergence-free space. We derive error estimates for all unknowns under both $L^2$ norms and energy norms. Numerical results in two dimensions and three dimensions verify the convergence rates and demonstrate the great flexibility of our method.     

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     

Stokes问题的杂交-混合有限元分析

本文发展Stokes问题的一个四变量杂交-混合变分方程：应力-速度-压力-拉格朗日乘子．然后发展其有限元方法：对应四变量分别用间断型Raviart—Thomas最低阶元，分片常数元，连续线性元和连续线性元的迹空间．我们获得了稳定性和最优误差界．通过后处理办法，我们得到一个适合于计算的速度-压力格式，该格式可视为“Mini”元方法的一个变形(本文格式中引入了局部投影算子)．然而，本文格式关于压力具有“超收敛”结果：得到了压力关于H^1-范的误差界O(h)．     

An a priori error analysis of an HDG method for an eddy current problem

This paper concerns itself with the development of an a priori error analysis of an eddy current problem when applying the well‐known hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin (HDG) method. Up to the authors' knowledge, this kind of theoretical result has not been proved for this kind of problems. We consider nontrivial domains and heterogeneous media which contain conductor and insulating materials. When dealing with these domains, it is necessary to impose the divergence‐free condition explicitly in the insulator, what is done by means of a suitable Lagrange multiplier in that material. In the end, we deduce an equivalent HDG formulation that includes as unknowns the tangential and normal trace of a vector field. This represents a reduction in the degrees of freedom when compares with the standard DG methods. For this scheme, we conduct a consistency and local conservative analysis as well as its unique solvability. After that, we introduce suitable projection operators that help us to deduce the expected a priori error estimate, which provides estimated rates of convergence when additional regularity on the exact solution is assumed.     

Analysis of a pseudostress-based mixed finite element method for the Brinkman model of porous media flow

In this paper we introduce and analyze a new mixed finite element method for the two-dimensional Brinkman model of porous media flow with mixed boundary conditions. We use a dual-mixed formulation in which the main unknown is given by the pseudostress. The original velocity and pressure unknowns are easily recovered through a simple postprocessing. In addition, since the Neumann boundary condition becomes essential, we impose it in a weak sense, which yields the introduction of the trace of the fluid velocity over the Neumann boundary as the associated Lagrange multiplier. We apply the Babu?ka–Brezzi theory to establish sufficient conditions for the well-posedness of the resulting continuous and discrete formulations. In particular, a feasible choice of finite element subspaces is given by Raviart–Thomas elements of order $k \ge 0$ for the pseudostress, and continuous piecewise polynomials of degree $k + 1$ for the Lagrange multiplier. We also derive a reliable and efficient residual-based a posteriori error estimator for this problem. Suitable auxiliary problems, the continuous inf-sup conditions satisfied by the bilinear forms involved, a discrete Helmholtz decomposition, and the local approximation properties of the Raviart–Thomas and Clément interpolation operators are the main tools for proving the reliability. Then, Helmholtz’s decomposition, inverse inequalities, and the localization technique based on triangle-bubble and edge-bubble functions are employed to show the efficiency. Finally, several numerical results illustrating the performance and the robustness of the method, confirming the theoretical properties of the estimator, and showing the behaviour of the associated adaptive algorithm, are provided.     

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     

Guaranteed velocity error control for the pseudostress approximation of the Stokes equations

The pseudostress approximation of the Stokes equations rewrites the stationary Stokes equations with pure (but possibly inhomogeneous) Dirichlet boundary conditions as another (equivalent) mixed scheme based on a stress in H(div) and the velocity in L². Any standard mixed finite element function space can be utilized for this mixed formulation, e.g., the Raviart‐Thomas discretization which is related to the Crouzeix‐Raviart nonconforming finite element scheme in the lowest‐order case. The effective and guaranteed a posteriori error control for this nonconforming velocity‐oriented discretization can be generalized to the error control of some piecewise quadratic velocity approximation that is related to the discrete pseudostress. The analysis allows for local inf‐sup constants which can be chosen in a global partition to improve the estimation. Numerical examples provide strong evidence for an effective and guaranteed error control with very small overestimation factors even for domains with large anisotropy.© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 32: 1411–1432, 2016     

Mixed finite element approximation for the stochastic pressure equation of Wick type

We propose a mixed finite element method for the numericalsolution of the stochastic pressure equation of Wick type. Inthis formulation, the pressure and the velocity are the mostrelevant unknowns. We give existence and uniqueness resultsfor the continuous problem and its approximation. Optimal errorestimates are derived and algorithmic aspects are discussed.Finally, the results of numerical experiments confirm the practicalefficiency of the mixed method.     

Discontinuous Stable Elements for the Incompressible Flow

In this paper, we derive a discontinuous Galerkin finite element formulation for the Stokes equations and a group of stable elements associated with the formulation. We prove that these elements satisfy the new inf–sup condition and can be used to solve incompressible flow problems. Associated with these stable elements, optimal error estimates for the approximation of both velocity and pressure in L ² norm are obtained for the Stokes problems, as well as an optimal error estimate for the approximation of velocity in a mesh dependent norm.     

Stabilization method for continuous approximation of transient convection problem

The aim of this work is to study a new finite element (FE) formulation for the approximation of nonsteady convection equation. Our approximation scheme is based on the Streamline Upwind Petrov Galerkin (SUPG) method for space variable, x, and a modified of the Euler implicit method for time variable, t. The most interest for this scheme lies in its application to resolve by continuous (FE) method the complex of viscoelastic fluid flow obeying an Oldroyd‐B differential model; this constituted our aim motivation and allows us to treat the constitutive law equation, which expresses the relation between the stress tensor and the velocity gradient and includes tensorial transport term. To make the analysis of the method more clear, we first study, in this article this modified method for the advection equation. We point out the stability of this new method and the error estimate of the approximation solution is discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2005     

A mixed and discontinuous Galerkin finite volume element method for incompressible miscible displacement problems in porous media

The incompressible miscible displacement problem in porous media is modeled by a coupled system of two nonlinear partial differential equations, the pressure‐velocity equation and the concentration equation. In this article, we present a mixed finite volume element method for the approximation of pressure‐velocity equation and a discontinuous Galerkin finite volume element method for the concentration equation. A priori error estimates in L^∞(L²) are derived for velocity, pressure, and concentration. Numerical results are presented to substantiate the validity of the theoretical results. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2012     

An existence result for nonisothermal immiscible incompressible 2‐phase flow in heterogeneous porous media

In the present article, we study the temperature effects on two‐phase immiscible incompressible flow through a porous medium. The mathematical model is given by a coupled system of 2‐phase flow equations and an energy balance equation. The model consists of the usual equations derived from the mass conservation of both fluids along with the Darcy‐Muskat and the capillary pressure laws. The problem is written in terms of the phase formulation; ie, the saturation of one phase, the pressure of the second phase, and the temperature are primary unknowns. The major difficulties related to this model are in the nonlinear degenerate structure of the equations, as well as in the coupling in the system. Under some realistic assumptions on the data, we show the existence of weak solutions with the help of an appropriate regularization and a time discretization. We use suitable test functions to obtain a priori estimates. We prove a new compactness result to pass to the limit in nonlinear terms.     

An algebraic multigrid method for Q2−Q1 mixed discretizations of the Navier–Stokes equations

Algebraic multigrid (AMG) preconditioners are considered for discretized systems of partial differential equations (PDEs) where unknowns associated with different physical quantities are not necessarily colocated at mesh points. Specifically, we investigate a Q ₂? Q ₁ mixed finite element discretization of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations where the number of velocity nodes is much greater than the number of pressure nodes. Consequently, some velocity degrees of freedom (DOFs) are defined at spatial locations where there are no corresponding pressure DOFs. Thus, AMG approaches leveraging this colocated structure are not applicable. This paper instead proposes an automatic AMG coarsening that mimics certain pressure/velocity DOF relationships of the Q ₂? Q ₁ discretization. The main idea is to first automatically define coarse pressures in a somewhat standard AMG fashion and then to carefully (but automatically) choose coarse velocity unknowns so that the spatial location relationship between pressure and velocity DOFs resembles that on the finest grid. To define coefficients within the intergrid transfers, an energy minimization AMG (EMIN‐AMG) is utilized. EMIN‐AMG is not tied to specific coarsening schemes and grid transfer sparsity patterns, and so it is applicable to the proposed coarsening. Numerical results highlighting solver performance are given on Stokes and incompressible Navier–Stokes problems.     

Dual-mixed finite element approximation of Stokes and nonlinear Stokes problems using trace-free velocity gradients

In this work a finite element method for a dual-mixed approximation of Stokes and nonlinear Stokes problems is studied. The dual-mixed structure, which yields a twofold saddle point problem, arises in a formulation of this problem through the introduction of unknown variables with relevant physical meaning. The method approximates the velocity, its gradient, and the total stress tensor, but avoids the explicit computation of the pressure, which can be recovered through a simple postprocessing technique. This method improves an existing approach for these problems and uses Raviart-Thomas elements and discontinuous piecewise polynomials for approximating the unknowns. Existence, uniqueness, and error results for the method are given, and numerical experiments that exhibit the reduced computational cost of this approach are presented.     

The finite volume method based on the Crouzeix–Raviart element for a fracture model

In this paper, we present and analyze a finite volume method based on the Crouzeix–Raviart element for the coupled fracture model, where the fluid flow is governed by Darcy's law in the one‐dimensional fracture and two‐dimensional surrounding matrix. In the numerical scheme, the pressure in the matrix and fracture is respectively approximated by the Crouzeix–Raviart elements and piecewise constant functions, and then the velocity is calculated by piecewise constant functions element by element. The existence and uniqueness of the numerical solution are discussed, and optimal order error estimates for both the pressure p and the velocity u are proved on general triangulations. We finally carry out numerical experiments, and results confirm our theoretical analysis.