Propagation and spurious reflection in finite-element approximations of hyperbolic equations (Q1083181)

The author considers as a model problem the simple hyperbolic equation (1) \(\partial u/\partial t+c \partial u/\partial x=0\), \((c>0)\) approximated by a linear finite element Galerkin method on a regular net. The corresponding fully discrete approximation of (1) is the implicit system \(M(u^ j_{n-1}+4u^ j_ n-u^ j_{n+1})/6=-C(u^ j_{n+1}-u^ j_{n-1})/2h\) where \(M(z)=2(z-1)/\Delta t(z+1)\) is the Crank-Nicolson time-shift operator. For this approximation the author shows that the energy conserved by this scheme is not the square of the \(1_ 2\) norm as it is with finite differences. Moreover the group velocities of rightgoing and leftgoing solutions are not equal. Illustrations of spurious reflection at downwind boundaries, upwind boundaries and at interfaces in mesh refinement are given together with their analysis.