CRPC-TR97688							February 1997

Title: A Projection Method for Constructing a Mass Conservative Velocity 
	Field

Authors: S. Chippada, C. Dawson, M. Martinez, M. Wheeler

Abstract:
In the numerical modeling of fluid flow and transport problems frequently 
the velocity field needs to be projected from one finite dimensional 
space into another. In certain applications, especially those involving 
modeling of multi-species transport, the new projected velocity field 
should be accurate as well as locally mass conservative.

In this paper, a velocity projection method has been developed that is 
both accurate and mass conservative elementy-by-element on the projected 
grid. The velocity correction is expressed as gradient of a scalar 
pressure field, and the resultant Poisson equation is solved using a 
mixed/hybrid finite element method and lowest-order Raviart Thomas 
spaces. The conservative projection method is applied to the system of 
shallow water equations and a theoretical error estimate is derived.