SUMMARY

An algorithm which permits to employ meshes with uniform size in the Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) framework is introduced. A key is to keep inside the integral sign the approximation of the ALE time derivative. We give the conditions when two time advancing algorithms based on the backward Euler scheme provide identical approximations. Numerical results are presented for Navier-Stokes equations in a moving domain. Contrary to the classical ALE framework, for a domain which grows strikingly, when the time step decreases, so do the errors. In addition, the uniform size mesh technique provides more accurate results. Copyright c 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd