Mixed finite elements for Bingham flow in a pipe (Q2100526)

The paper deals with the numerical solution of viscous, plastic Bingham flow in a cylindrical pipe by mixed finite element approximations. A novel a priori and a posteriori error analysis is introduced which is based on a discrete mesh dependent norm for the normalized Lagrange multiplier. This allows proving stability for various conforming finite elements. The analysis gives full control for both the error of the velocity and the error of the (divergence of the) Lagrange multiplier. Numerical examples are presented to support the theory and to demonstrate adaptive mesh refinement.