Dr. Caucao-Paillán, Sergio

This paper develops the a priori analysis of a mixed finite element method for the filtration of an incompressible fluid through a non-deformable saturated porous medium with heterogeneous permeability. Flows are governed by the Brinkman–Forchheimer and Darcy equations in the more and less permeable regions, respectively, and the corresponding transmission conditions are given by mass conservation and continuity of momentum. We consider the standard mixed formulation in the Brinkman–Forchheimer domain and the dual-mixed one in the Darcy region, and we impose the continuity of the normal velocities by introducing suitable Lagrange multiplier. The finite element discretization involves Bernardi–Raugel and Raviart–Thomas elements for the velocities, piecewise constants for the pressures, and continuous piecewise linear elements for the Lagrange multiplier. Stability, convergence, and a priori error estimates for the associated Galerkin scheme are obtained. Numerical tests illustrate the theoretical results.

In this work we present and analyse a mixed finite element method for the coupling of fluid flow with porous media flow. The flows are governed by the Navier–Stokes and the Darcy–Forchheimer equations, respectively, and the corresponding transmission conditions are given by mass conservation, balance of normal forces, and the Beavers–Joseph–Saffman law. We consider the standard mixed formulation in the Navier–Stokes domain and the dual-mixed one in the Darcy–Forchheimer region, which yields the introduction of the trace of the porous medium pressure as a suitable Lagrange multiplier. The well-posedness of the problem is achieved by combining a fixed-point strategy, classical results on nonlinear monotone operators and the well-known Schauder and Banach fixed-point theorems. As for the associated Galerkin scheme we employ Bernardi–Raugel and Raviart–Thomas elements for the velocities, and piecewise constant elements for the pressures and the Lagrange multiplier, whereas its existence and uniqueness of solution is established similarly to its continuous counterpart, using in this case the Brouwer and Banach fixed-point theorems, respectively. We show stability, convergence, and a priori error estimates for the associated Galerkin scheme. Finally, we report some numerical examples confirming the predicted rates of convergence, and illustrating the performance of the method.