On a three level two-grid finite element method for the 2D-transient Navier-Stokes equations

Abstract

In this paper, an error analysis of a three steps two level Galekin finite element method for the two dimensional transient Navier-Stokes equations is discussed. First of all, the problem is discretized in spatial direction by employing finite element method on a coarse mesh $\mathcal{T} _H$ with mesh size $H$. Then, in step two, the nonlinear system is linearized around the coarse grid solution, say, $u_H$, which is similar to Newton's type iteration and the resulting linear system is solved on a finer mesh $\mathcal{T}_h$ with mesh size $h$. In step three, a correction is obtained through solving a linear problem on the finer mesh and an updated final solution is derived. Optimal error estimates in $L^{\infty}({\bf L}^2)$-norm, when $h=\mathcal{O} (H^{2-δ})$ and in $L^{\infty}(\bH^1)$-norm, when $h=\mathcal{O}(H^{4-δ})$ for the velocity and in $L^{\infty}(L^2)$-norm, when $h=\mathcal{O}(H^{4-δ})$ for the pressure are established for arbitrarily small $δ>0$. Further, under uniqueness assumption, these estimates are proved to be valid uniformly in time. Then based on backward Euler method, a completely discrete scheme is analyzed and {\it a priori} error estimates are derived. Finally, the paper is concluded with some numerical experiments.