Finite volume element approximation of the coupled continuum pipe‐flow/Darcy model for flows in karst aquifers

Abstract

A finite volume element method is applied to approximate the continuum pipe‐flow/Darcy problem, which models the coupled conduit flow and porous media flow in Karst aquifers. A decoupled scheme is proposed for solving the coupled discretization problem. Optimal error estimates in L2 norm and H1 norm are given in this article. Some numerical examples are presented to verify the theoretical results and demonstrate the effectiveness of the decoupling approach. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 30: 376–392, 2014