A fully discrete stabilized finite element method for the time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations

In this article, we consider a fully discrete stabilized finite element method based on two local Gauss integrations for the two-dimensional time-dependent Navier–Stokes equations. It focuses on the lowest equal-order velocity–pressure pairs. Unlike the other stabilized method, the present approach does not require specification of a stabilization parameter or calculation of higher-order derivatives, and always leads to a symmetric linear system. The Euler semi-implicit scheme is used for the time discretization. It is shown that the proposed fully discrete stabilized finite element method results in the optimal order bounds for the velocity and pressure. 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.