A projection hybrid finite volume/element method for low-Mach number flows

The purpose of this article is to introduce a projection hybrid finite volume/element method for low-Mach number flows of viscous or inviscid fluids. Starting with a 3D tetrahedral finite element mesh of the computational domain, the equation of the transport-diffusion stage is discretized by a finite volume method associated with a dual mesh where the nodes of the volumes are the barycenters of the faces of the initial tetrahedra. The transport-diffusion stage is explicit. Upwinding of convective terms is done by classical Riemann solvers as the Q-scheme of van Leer or the Rusanov scheme. Concerning the projection stage, the pressure correction is computed by a piecewise linear finite element method associated with the initial tetrahedral mesh. Passing the information from one stage to the other is carefully made in order to get a stable global scheme. Numerical results for several test examples aiming at evaluating the convergence properties of the method are shown.