Projective Solutions Methods Automatically Satisfying the Stokes, Oseen and Brinkman Equations

The new projective solutions methods (PSMs) for solving the Stokes, Oseen, and Brinkman flow problems are presented in this paper. They automatically satisfy the governing equations and are therefore Trefftz-type methods. Utilizing the third-order formulation and three-dimensional analytic functions, we derive a meshless Trefftz-type method to solve three-dimensional Stokes flow problems. The Oseen and Brinkman equations are transformed into four coupled third-order/first-order partial differential equations. The projective-type particular solution (PTPS) is obtained via a projective function in terms of the projective variable; the third-order ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with constant coefficients are derived to determine the projective functions. The Trefftz-type PSM is extremely accurate, because the governing equations (including the incompressibility condition) are implemented automatically. For the Brinkman equations, the general solutions of velocity and pressure are presented by using the Helmholtz function and a harmonic function, whose corresponding Trefftz-type numerical method is developed. Upon comparison with the method of fundamental solutions (MFS), the new methods exhibit some advantages, including lower condition numbers, faster convergence, and better accuracy. We also apply the Trefftz-type PSM to solve the exterior problem of the Stokes equations, where the velocity tends to zero at infinity.