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Recently there have been numerous advances in the development of numerical algorithms to solve conservation laws. Even though the analytical theory (existence-uniqueness) is complete in the case of scalar conservation laws, there are many numerically robust methods for which the question of convergence and error estimates are still open. Usually high order schemes are constructed to be Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) which only guarantees convergence of such schemes to a weak solution. The standard approach in proving convergence to the entropy solution is to try to establish cell entropy inequalities. However, this typically requires additional non-homogeneous limitations on the numerical method, which reduces the modified scheme to first order when the mesh is refined. There are only a few results on the convergence which do not impose such limitations and all of them assume some smoothness on the initial data in addition to L^infinity bound. The Nessyahu-Tadmor (NT) scheme is a typical example of a high order scheme. It is a simple yet robust second order non-oscillatory scheme, which relies on a non-linear piecewise linear reconstruction. A standard reconstruction choice is based on the so-called minmod limiter which gives a maximum principle for the scheme. Unfortunately, this limiter reduces the reconstruction to first order at local extrema. Numerical evidence suggests that this limitation is not necessary. By using MAPR-like limiters, one can allow local nonlinear reconstructions which do not reduce to first order at local extrema. However, use of such limiters requires a new approach when trying to prove a maximum principle for the scheme. It is also well known that the NT scheme does not satisfy the so-called strict cell entropy inequalities, which is the main difficulty in proving convergence to the entropy solution. In this work, the NT scheme with MAPR-like limiters is considered. A maximum principle result for a conservation law with any Lipschitz flux and also with any k-monotone flux is proven. Using this result it is also proven that in the case of strictly convex flux, the NT scheme with a properly selected MAPR-like limiter satisfies an one-sided Lipschitz stability estimate. As a result, convergence to the unique entropy solution when the initial data satisfies the so-called one-sided Lipschitz condition is obtained. Finally, compensated compactness arguments are employed to prove that for any bounded initial data, the NT scheme based on a MAPR-like limiter converges strongly on compact sets to the unique entropy solution of the conservation law with a strictly convex flux.

It is well known that a classical solution of the initial value problem for a scalar conservation law may fail to exist on the whole domain of definition of the problem. For this reason, suitable generalized solutions of such problems, known as weak solutions, have been considered and studied extensively. However, weak solutions are not unique. In order to obtain a unique solution that is physically relevant, the vanishing viscosity method, amongst others, has been employed to single out a unique solution known as the entropy solution. In this thesis we present an alternative approach to the study of the entropy solution of conservation laws. The main novelty of our approach is that the theory of entropy solution of conservation law is presented in an operator theoretic setting. In this regard, the Order Completion Method for nonlinear PDEs, in the context of convergence vector spaces, is modified to obtain an operator equation which generalizes the initial value problem. This equation admits at most one solution, which may be represented as a Hausdorff continuous function. As a particular case, we apply our method to obtain the entropy solution of the Burger's equation. Copyright / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Mathematics and Applied Mathematics / Unrestricted

Cette thèse est centrée autour de l’étude théorique et de l’analyse numérique des équations paraboliques non linéaires avec divers conditions aux limites. La première partie est consacrée aux équations paraboliques dégénérées mêlant des phénomènes non-linéaires de diffusion et de transport. Nous définissons des notions de solutions entropiques adaptées pour chacune des conditions aux limites (flux nul, Robin, Dirichlet). La difficulté principale dans l’étude de ces problèmes est due au manque de régularité du flux pariétal pour traiter les termes de bords. Ceci pose un problème pour la preuve d’unicité. Pour y remédier, nous tirons profit du fait que ces résultats de régularités sur le bord sont plus faciles à obtenir pour le problème stationnaire et particulièrement en dimension un d’espace. Ainsi par la méthode de comparaison "fort-faible" nous arrivons à déduire l’unicité avec le choix d’une fonction test non symétrique et en utilisant la théorie des semi-groupes non linéaires.L’existence de solution se démontre en deux étapes, combinant la méthode de régularisation parabolique et les approximations de Galerkin. Nous développons ensuite une approche directe en construisant des solutions approchées par un schéma de volumes finis implicite en temps. Dans les deux cas, on combine les estimations dans les espaces fonctionnels bien choisis avec des arguments de compacité faible ou forte et diverses astuces permettant de passer à la limite dans des termes non linéaires. Notamment, nous introduisons une nouvelle notion de solution appelée solution processus intégrale dont l’objectif, dans le cadre de notre étude, est de pallier à la difficulté de prouver la convergence vers une solution entropique d’un schéma volumes finis pour le problème de flux nul au bord.La deuxième partie de cette thèse traite d’un problème à frontière libre décrivant la propagation d’un front de combustion et l’évolution de la température dans un milieu hétérogène. Il s’agit d’un système d’équations couplées constitué de l’équation de la chaleur bidimensionnelle et d’une équation de type Hamilton-Jacobi. L’objectif de cette partie est de construire un schéma numérique pour ce problème en combinant des discrétisations du type éléments finis avec les différences finies. Ceci nous permet notamment de vérifier la convergence de la solution numérique vers une solution onde pour un temps long. Dans un premier temps, nous nous intéressons à l’étude d’un problème unidimensionnel. Très vite,nous nous heurtons à un problème de stabilité du schéma. Cela est dû au problème de prise en compte de la condition de Neumann au bord. Par une technique de changement d’inconnue et d’approximation nous remédions à ce problème. Ensuite, nous adaptons cette technique pour la résolution du problème bidimensionnel. A l’aide d’un changement de variables, nous obtenons un domaine fixe facile pour la discrétisation. La monotonie du schéma obtenu est prouvée sous une hypothèse supplémentaire de propagation monotone qui exige que la frontière libre se déplace dans les directions d’un cône prescrit à l’avance. / This thesis focuses on the theoretical study and numerical analysis of parabolic equations with boundary conditions.The first part is devoted to degenerate parabolic equation which combines features of a hyperbolic conser-vation law with those of a porous medium equation. We define suitable notions of entropy solutions foreach of the boundary conditions (zero-flux, Robin, Dirichlet). The main difficulty in these studies residesin the formulation of the adequate notion of entropy solution and in the proof of uniqueness. There isa technical difficulty due to the lack of regularity required to treat the boundaries terms. We take ad-vantage of the fact that boundary regularity results are easier to obtain for the stationary problem, inparticular in one space dimension. Thus, using strong-weak uniqueness approach we get the uniquenesswith the choice of a non-symmetric test function and using the nonlinear semigroup theory. The exis-tence of solution is proved in two steps, combining the method of parabolic regularization and Galerkinapproximations. Next, we develop a direct approach to construct approximate solutions by an implicitfinite volume scheme. In both cases, the estimates in the appropriately chosen functional spaces are com-bined with arguments of weak or strong compactness and various tricks to pass to the limit in nonlinearterms. In the appendix, we propose a result of existence of strong trace of a solution for the degenerateparabolic problem. In another appendix of independent interest, we introduce a new concept of solutioncalled integral process solution. We exploit it to overcome the difficulty of proving the convergence ofour finite volume scheme to an entropy solution for the zero-flux boundary problem.The second part of this thesis deals with a free boundary problem describing the propagation of a com-bustion front and the evolution of the temperature in a heterogeneous medium. So we have a coupledproblem consisting of the heat equation of bidimensional space and a Hamilton-Jacobi equation. The ob-jective is to construct a numerical scheme and to verify that the numerical solution converges to a wavesolution for a long time. Recall that an existence of wave solution for this problem was already proven inan analytical framework. At first, we focus on the study of a one-dimensional problem. Here, we face aproblem of stability of the scheme. This is due to a difficulty of taking into account the Neumann boun-dary condition. Through a technique of change of unknown, we can propose a monotone scheme. Wealso adapt this technique for solving two-dimensional problem. Using a change of variables, we obtaina fixed domain where the discretization becomes easy. The monotony of the scheme is proved under anadditional assumption of monotone propagation that requires the free boundary moves in the directionsof a cone given beforehand.