NURBS-enhanced finite element method for Euler equations

This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Sevilla, R.; Fernandez, S.; Huerta, A. NURBS-enhanced finite element method for Euler equations. "International journal for numerical methods in fluids", Juliol 2008, vol. 57, núm. 9, p. 1051-1069., which has been published in final form at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117905455/abstractIn this work, the NURBS-enhanced finite element method (NEFEM) is combined with a discontinuous Galerkin (DG) formulation for the numerical solution of Euler equations of gas dynamics. With NEFEM, numerical fluxes along curved boundaries are computed much more accurately due to the exact geometric representation of the computational domain. The proper implementation of the wall boundary condition and the exact geometry provide accurate results even with a linear approximation of the solution. A detailed comparison of NEFEM in front of isoparametric finite elements is presented, demonstrating the superiority of NEFEM approach for both linear and higher-order computations.Peer Reviewe