Finite volume element approximation for nonlinear diffusion problems with degenerate diffusion coefficients

Abstract

Some standard numerical methods, such as mimetic finite difference method, finite volume method and mixed finite element method, often fail in solving nonlinear diffusion problems with degenerate diffusion coefficients, since a harmonic average of diffusion coefficients is involved in these methods. To avoid such problem, we present some finite volume element schemes to solve a class of 1D degenerate nonlinear parabolic equations in this paper. Some fully discrete schemes are given by using linear and quadratic finite volume elements in space and a backward difference formulation in time. To deal with unphysical numerical oscillation, we apply two nonnegativity-preserving repair techniques based on a posteriori corrections to finite volume element solutions. One is a local approach, in which any negative energy corresponding to some mesh node is absorbed by the positive values near the current node. The other is a global strategy, in which the total negative energy is redistributed to each positive value in the numerical solution in proportion to its value. In addition, some monotonous finite volume element schemes with lumped-mass strategy are presented. Numerical examples are included to demonstrate the effectiveness and competitive behavior of the proposed methods.