Upwind finite volume schemes for weakly coupled hyperbolic systems of conservation laws in 2D

Abstract

Systems of nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws in two space dimensions are considered which are characterized by the fact that the coupling of the equations is only due to source terms. To solve these weakly coupled systems numerically a class of explicit and implicit upwind finite volume methods on unstructured grids is presented. Provided an unique entropy solution of the system of conservation laws exists we prove that the approximations obtained by these schemes converge for vanishing discretization parameter to this entropy solution. These results are applied to examples from combustion theory and hydrology where the existence of entropy solutions can be shown. The proofs rely on an extension of a result due to DiPerna concerning measure valued solutions to the case of weakly coupled hyperbolic systems.