A well-balanced second-order finite volume approximation for a coupled system of granular flow

A well-balanced second-order finite volume scheme is proposed and analyzed for a 2 x 2 system of non-linear partial differential equations which describes the dynamics of growing sandpiles created by a vertical source on a flat, bounded rectangular table in multiple dimensions. To derive a second-order scheme, we combine a MUSCL type spatial reconstruction with strong stability preserving Runge-Kutta time stepping method. The resulting scheme is ensured to be well-balanced through a modified limiting approach that allows the scheme to revert to a wellbalanced first-order scheme if it fails to capture or preserve the discrete steady state solution during its time evolution. Further, the scheme maintains the second-order accuracy away from the steady state. The well-balance property of the scheme is proven analytically in one dimension and demonstrated numerically in two dimensions. Additionally, numerical experiments reveal that the second-order scheme reduces finite time oscillations and provides better resolutions of the physical properties of the state variables, as compared to the existing first-order schemes of the literature.