Uniform error analysis of an exponential IMEX-SAV method for the incompressible flows with large Reynolds number based on grad-div stabilization

Abstract

Based on the grad-div stabilization and scalar auxiliary variable (SAV) methods, a first-order Euler implicit/explicit finite element scheme is studied for the Navier–Stokes equations with large Reynolds number. In the designing of numerical scheme, the nonlinear term is explicitly treated such that one only needs to solve a constant coefficient algebraic system at each time step. Meanwhile, the proposed scheme is unconditionally stable without any condition of the time step $\tau$ and mesh size $h$. In finite element discretization, we use the stable Taylor-Hood element for the approximation of the velocity and pressure. By a rigorous analysis, we derive an uniform $L^2$ error estimate $O(\tau +h^2)$ of the velocity in which the constant is independent of the viscosity coefficient. Finally, numerical experiments are given to support theoretical results and the efficiency of the proposed scheme.