
4 P. CHATZIPANTELIDIS AND C. PERVOLIANAKIS
2.2.1. Low order scheme. The semidiscrete problem (1.7) may be expressed in the matrix form (1.8)–(1.9),
where the matrices Mand Sare symmetric and positive definite. However Tβis not symmetric, but as we will
demonstrate in the sequel, cf. Lemma 3.4, it has a zero-column sum.
For a function v∈ C0, let v= (v1, . . . , vN)Tdenote the vector with coefficients its nodal values vi=v(Zi),
Zi∈ Zh,i= 1, . . . , N. We will often expess the coefficients τij ,i, j = 1, . . . , N, of Tβas functions of an element
ψ∈ Sh,τij =τij (ψ) = τij (ψ), such that ψ=Pjψjϕj∈ Shand ψ= (ψ1, . . . , ψN)T. Thus the elements of
Tβ=T= (τij ), may be expressed equivallently as,
(2.5) τij =τij (ψ) = τij (ψ) = λ(ϕj∇ψ, ∇ϕi) = λ
N
X
ℓ=1
ψℓ(ϕj∇ϕℓ,∇ϕi).
In order to preserve non-negativity of α(t) and β(t), a low order semi-discrete scheme of minimal model has
been proposed, cf. e.g. [28], where Mis replaced by the corresponding lumped mass matrix MLand an artificial
artificial diffusion operator D=Dβ= (dij ) is added to T, to elliminate all negative off-diagonal elements of T,
so that T+D≥0, elementwise. Thus, assuming that Thsatisfies an acute condition, i.e., all interior angles of
a triangle K∈ Thare less than π/2, gives that sij ≤0 and hence, the off diagonal elements of S−T−Dare
nonpositive, sij −τij −dij ≤0, i̸=j,i, j = 1, . . . , N. However, note that assuming Thto be acute is not a
necessary condition to preserve non-negativity of α(t) or β(t).
Also, we will often suppress the index βin the coefficients dij =dij (β), i, j = 1, . . . , N , or expess them as
functions of an element ψ∈ Sh,dij (ψ) = dij (ψ), such that ψ=Pjψjϕj∈ Shand ψ= (ψ1, . . . , ψN)T. Since,
we would like our scheme to maintain the mass, Dmust be symmetric with zero row and column sums, cf. [28],
which is true if D= (dij )N
i,j=1 is defined by
(2.6) dij := max{−τij ,0,−τji}=dji ≥0,∀j̸=iand dii := −X
j̸=i
dij .
Thus the resulting system for the approximation of (1.1) is expressed as follows, we seek α(t),β(t)∈RNsuch
that, for t∈[0, T ],
MLα′(t)+(S−Tβ−Dβ)α(t)=0,with α(0) = α0,(2.7)
MLβ′(t)+(S+ML)β(t) = MLα(t),with β(0) = β0.(2.8)
Let for w∈ Sh,dh(w;·,·) : C0× C0→R,be a bilinear form defined by
(2.9) dh(w;v, z) :=
N
X
i,j=1
dij (w)(vi−vj)zi,∀v, z ∈ C0,
and (·,·)hbe an inner product in Shthat approximates (·,·) and is defined by
(2.10) (ψ, χ)h=X
K∈Th
QK
h(ψχ),with QK
h(g) = 1
3|K|X
Z∈Zh(K)
g(Z)≈ZK
g(x)dx,
with Zh(K) the vertices of K∈ Thand |K|the area of K∈ Th. Then following [3], the coupled system (2.7)–(2.8)
can be rewritten in the following variational formulation: Find uh(t), ch(t)∈ Shsuch that
(uh,t, χ)h+ (∇uh−λuh∇ch,∇χ) + dh(ch;uh, χ) = 0,∀χ∈ Sh,(2.11)
(ch,t, χ)h+ (∇ch,∇χ)+(ch−uh, χ)h= 0,∀χ∈ Sh,(2.12)
with uh(0) = u0
h∈ Shand ch(0) = c0
h∈ Sh.
We can easily see that (·,·)hinduces an equivallent norm to ∥·∥L2on Sh. Thus, there exist constants C, C′
independed on h, such that
(2.13) C∥χ∥h≤ ∥χ∥L2≤C′∥χ∥h,with ∥χ∥h= (χ, χ)1/2
h,∀χ∈ Sh.
2.2.2. Algebraic flux correction scheme. The replacement of the standard FEM discretization (1.8)-(1.9) by the
low-order scheme (2.7)-(2.8) ensures nonnegativity but introduces an error which manifests the order of conver-
gence, cf. e.g. [27,19]. Thus, following Strehl et al. [27], one may “correct” the semidiscrete scheme (2.7)-(2.8)
by introducing a flux correction term. Hence, we also consider an algebraic flux correction (AFC) scheme, which
involves the decomposition of this error into internodal fluxes, which can be used to restore high accuracy in
regions where the solution is well resolved and no modifications of the standard FEM are required. There exists
various algorithms to implement an AFC scheme. Here we will follow the one proposed by G. Barrenachea et.
al. in [4].
The AFC scheme is constructed in the following way. Let f= (f1, . . . , fN)Tdenote the error of inserting the
operator Dβin (1.8), i.e., f(α,β) = −Dβα.Using the zero row sum property of matrix Dβ, cf. (2.6), we can