Studies in Bayesian Econometrics and Statistics, In honor of Leonard J. Savage

Abstract

We construct a finite volume element scheme with a monotonicity correction for anisotropic diffusion problems on general quadrilateral meshes, where the strict convexity restriction on the meshes is removed. The main contributions of this paper include three aspects. Firstly, the classical finite volume element (C-FVE) method is extended to severely distorted quadrilateral meshes even with concave cells by virtue of a new overlapping dual partition and a new gradient approximation. In fact, the choice of this dual partition and gradient approximation is also conducive to the construction of a monotone scheme. Secondly, a new monotonicity correction is suggested, based on which we obtain a monotone finite volume element (M-FVE) method. The resulting M-FVE method still keeps the local conservation and is easy for implementation. Finally, we analyze theoretically the truncation error and the monotonicity for this scheme. Besides, the existence of a solution to this nonlinear scheme is proved by applying the Brouwer's fixed point theorem. Numerical results demonstrate that the M-FVE method has the approximate second-order accuracy and preserves well the positivity of the solution for both isotropic and anisotropic diffusion problems on severely distorted quadrilateral meshes.