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Enhanced Velocity Mixed Finite Element Methods for Flow in Multiblock Domains

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Abstract

The paper presents a new approach to discretizing flow in porous media via mixed finite element methods on non-matching multiblock grids. The velocity space along the interfaces is enhanced to give flux-continuous approximation. No additional matching conditions need to be imposed. The computational complexity of the resulting algebraic problem is comparable to the one for the single-block case. A priori error estimates for the pressure and the velocity and numerical experiments confirming the theory are presented.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Texas Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics (TICAM), The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    John A. Wheeler

  2. TICAM, Department of Aerospace Engineering & Engineering Mechanics, and Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    Mary F. Wheeler

  3. Department of Mathematics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA

    Ivan Yotov

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  1. John A. Wheeler
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  2. Mary F. Wheeler
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  3. Ivan Yotov
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Wheeler, J.A., Wheeler, M.F. & Yotov, I. Enhanced Velocity Mixed Finite Element Methods for Flow in Multiblock Domains. Computational Geosciences 6, 315–332 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021270509932

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