We consider a scalar conservation law with zero-flux boundary conditions imposed on the boundary of a rectangular multidimensional domain. We study monotone schemes applied to this problem. For the Godunov version of the scheme, we simply set the boundary flux equal to zero. For other monotone schemes, we additionally apply a simple modification to the numerical flux. We show that the approximate solutions produced by these schemes converge to the unique entropy solution, in the sense of [7], of the conservation law. Our convergence result relies on a BV bound on the approximate numerical solution. In addition, we show that a certain functional that is closely related to the total variation is nonincreasing from one time level to the next. We extend our scheme to handle degenerate convection-diffusion equations and for the one-dimensional case we prove convergence to the unique entropy solution.

We study a one-dimensional model for two-phase flows in heterogeneous media, in which the capillary pressure functions can be discontinuous with respect to space. We first give a model, leading to a system of degenerated nonlinear parabolic equations spatially coupled by nonlinear transmission conditions. We approximate the solution of our problem thanks to a monotonous finite volume scheme. The convergence of the underlying discrete solution to a weak solution when the discretization step tends to 0 is then proven. We also show, under assumptions on the initial data, a uniform estimate on the flux, which is then used during the uniqueness proof. A density argument allows us to relax the assumptions on the initial data and to extend the existence-uniqueness frame to a family of solution obtained as limit of approximations. A numerical example is then given to illustrate the behavior of the model.

We present a fully adaptive multiresolution scheme for spatially one-dimensional quasilinear strongly degenerate parabolic equations with zero-flux and periodic boundary conditions. The numerical scheme is based on a finite volume discretization using the Engquist-Osher numerical flux and explicit time stepping. An adaptive multiresolution scheme based on cell averages is then used to speed up the CPU time and the memory requirements of the underlying finite volume scheme, whose first-order version is known to converge to an entropy solution of the problem. A particular feature of the method is the storage of the multiresolution representation of the solution in a graded tree, whoseleaves are the non-uniform finite volumes on which the numerical divergence is eventually evaluated. Moreover using the L 1 contraction of the discrete time evolution operator we derive the optimal choice of the threshold in the adaptive multiresolution method. Numerical examples illustrate thecomputational efficiency together with the convergence properties.

Finite element approximation for degenerate parabolic equations is considered. We propose a semidiscrete scheme provided with order-preserving and L1 contraction properties, making use of piecewise linear trial functions and the lumping mass technique. Those properties allow us to apply nonlinear semigroup theory, and the wellposedness and stability in L1 and L∞, respectively, of the scheme are established. Under certain hypotheses on the data, we also derive L1 convergence without any convergence rate. The validity of theoretical results is confirmed by numerical examples.