A computational methodology to study coupled physical processes over partitioned domains

In this paper, we describe a computational methodology to couple physical processes defined over independent subdomains, that are partitions of a global domain in three-dimensions. The methodology presented helps to compute the numerical solution on the global domain by appropriately piecing the local solutions from each subdomain. We discuss the mixed method formulation for the technique applied to a model problem and derive an error estimate for the finite element solution. We demonstrate through numerical experiments that the method is robust and reliable in higher dimensions.