On the solution of the steady convection—diffusion equation using quadratic elements: a generalized galerkin technique also reliable with distorted meshes

A generalized Galerkin technique originally developed by Donea, Belytschko and Smolinski for solving the steady convection—diffusion equation using elements with quadratic interpolation has been modified to extend its application to the case of geometrically distorted 1D and 2D elements. The numerical results indicate that the modified scheme gives accurate results and presents a rather small sensitivity to element distortions.