Dr. Caucao-Paillán, Sergio

We propose and analyze a new mixed finite element method for the problem of steady double-diffusive convection in a fluid-saturated porous medium. More precisely, the model is described by the coupling of the Brinkman–Forchheimer and double-diffusion equations, in which the originally sought variables are the velocity and pressure of the fluid, and the temperature and concentration of a solute. Our approach is based on the introduction of the further unknowns given by the fluid pseudostress tensor, and the pseudoheat and pseudodiffusive vectors, thus yielding a fully-mixed formulation. Furthermore, since the nonlinear term in the Brinkman–Forchheimer equation requires the velocity to live in a smaller space than usual, we partially augment the variational formulation with suitable Galerkin type terms, which forces both the temperature and concentration scalar fields to live in \(\mathrm {L}^4\). As a consequence, the aforementioned pseudoheat and pseudodiffusive vectors live in a suitable \(\mathrm {H}(\mathrm {div})\)-type Banach space. The resulting augmented scheme is written equivalently as a fixed point equation, so that the well-known Schauder and Banach theorems, combined with the Lax–Milgram and Banach–Nečas–Babuška theorems, allow to prove the unique solvability of the continuous problem. As for the associated Galerkin scheme we utilize Raviart–Thomas spaces of order \(k\ge 0\) for approximating the pseudostress tensor, as well as the pseudoheat and pseudodiffusive vectors, whereas continuous piecewise polynomials of degree \(\le k + 1\) are employed for the velocity, and piecewise polynomials of degree \(\le k\) for the temperature and concentration fields. In turn, the existence and uniqueness of the discrete solution is established similarly to its continuous counterpart, applying in this case the Brouwer and Banach fixed-point theorems, respectively. Finally, we derive optimal a priori error estimates and provide several numerical results confirming the theoretical rates of convergence and illustrating the performance and flexibility of the method.

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.