An alternative procedure for approximating hyperbolic systems of conservation laws

This work presents an alternative numerical procedure for simulating a class of nonlinear hyperbolic systems, using Glimm's method for advancing in time. The standard procedure to implement this methodology suffers from the disadvantage of requiring a complete solution of the associated Riemann problem—a task, in general, not easily reached. The alternative procedure introduced in this article consists in approximating the solution of the associated Riemann problem by piecewise constant functions always satisfying the jump condition—thus circumventing the difficulty of solving the Riemann problem and giving rise to an approximation easier to implement with lower computational cost. In order to illustrate the good performance of the alternative methodology proposed, two problems are considered—namely the transport of a pollutant in the atmosphere and the dynamics of the filling up of a rigid porous medium, modeled under a mixture theory viewpoint. Comparison with the standard procedure, employing the complete solution of the associated Riemann problem for implementing Glimm's scheme, has shown good agreement.