Solution of the transport equations using a moving coordinate system

Abstract A convection-diffusion equation arises from the conservation equations in miscible and immiscible flooding, thermal recovery, and water movement through desiccated soil. When the convection term dominates the diffusion term, the equations are very difficult to solve numerically. Owing to the hyperbolic character assumed for dominating convection, inaccurate, oscillating solutions result. A new solution technique minimizes the oscillations. The differential equation is transformed into a moving coordinate system which eliminates the convection term but makes the boundary location change in time. We illustrate the new method on two one-dimensional problems: the linear convection-diffusion equation and a non-linear diffusion type equation governing water movement through desiccated soil. Transforming the linear convection diffusion equation into a moving coordinate system gives a diffusion equation with time dependent boundary conditions. We apply orthogonal collocation on finite elements with a Crank-Nicholson time discretization. Comparisons are made to schemes using fixed coordinate systems. The equation describing movement of water in dry soil is a highly non-linear diffusion-type equation with coefficients varying over six orders of magnitude. We solve the equation in a coordinate system moving with a time-dependent velocity, which is determined by the location of the largest gradient of the solution. The finite difference technique with a variable grid size is applied, and a modified Crank-Nicholson technique is used for the temporal discretization. Comparisons are made to an exact solution obtained by similarity transformation, and with an ordinary finite difference scheme on a fixed coordinate system.