Finite element method for two-phase immiscible flow

An explicit finite element method for numerically solving the two-phase, immiscible, incompressible flow in a porous medium in two space dimensions is analyzed. The method is based on the use of a mixed finite element method for the approximation of the velocity and pressure a discontinuous upwinding finite element method for the approximation of the saturation. The mixed method gives an approximate velocity field in the precise form needed by the discontinuous method, which is trivially conservative and fully parallelizable in computation. It is proven that it converges to the exact solution. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.