FEM SUPG stabilisation of mixed isoparametric BEMs: Application to linearised free surface flows

Abstract In finite element formulations, transport dominated problems are often stabilised through the Streamline-Upwind-Petrov–Galerkin (SUPG) method. Its application is straightforward when the problem at hand is solved using Galerkin methods. Applications of boundary integral formulations often resort to collocation techniques which are computationally more tractable. In this framework, the Galerkin method and the stabilisation may still be used to successfully apply boundary conditions and resolve instabilities that are frequently observed in transport dominated problems. We apply this technique to an adaptive collocation boundary element method for the solution of stationary potential flows, where we solve a mixed Poisson problem in boundary integral form, with the addition of linearised free surface boundary conditions. We use a mixed boundary element formulation to allow for different finite dimensional spaces describing the flow potential and its normal derivative, and we validate our method simulating the flow around both a submerged body and a surface piercing body. The coupling of mixed surface finite elements and strongly consistent stabilisation techniques with boundary elements opens up the possibility to use non conformal unstructured grids with local refinement, without introducing the inconsistencies of other stabilisation techniques based on up-winding and finite difference schemes.