Error estimates for a stabilized finite element method for the Oldroyd B model

In this paper, we study a new approximation scheme of transient viscoelastic fluid flow obeying an Oldroyd-B-type constitutive equation. The new stabilized formulation bases on the choice of a modified Euler method connected to the streamline upwinding Petrov–Galerkin (SUPG) method [M. Bensaada, D. Esselaoui, D. Sandri, Stabilization method for continuous approximation of transient convection problem, Numer. Methods Partial Differential Equations 21 (2004) 170–189], in order to stabilize the tensorial transport term of the Oldroyd derivative. Suppose that the continuous problem admits a sufficiently smooth and sufficiently small solution. A priori error estimates for the approximation in terms of the mesh parameter h and the time discretization parameter Δt are derived.