A pressure-robust mixed finite element method for the coupled Stokes–Darcy problem

A pressure-robust numerical method for the coupled Stokes–Darcy problem is proposed. We use the continuous piecewise linear polynomial space combined with the lowest order Raviart–Thomas space to discretize the Stokes equation in the fluid region and the lowest order Raviart–Thomas elements to discretize the Darcy equation in the porous media domain. We also perform a divergence-free reconstruction of the test function for the right-hand term. Our method has good properties of convergence, pressure-robustness and local mass conservation in the sense of projection. A discrete inf-sup condition and error estimates for the numerical scheme are demonstrated, the error of velocity is independent of viscosity and pressure. Finally, the theoretical analysis is validated with several examples, demonstrating the superiority of the pressure-robust scheme. •The error of velocity is independent of viscosity and pressure.•The method has good properties of convergence and local mass conservation.•A discrete inf-sup condition and error estimates for the scheme are demonstrated.•It is convenient to calculate and the calculation cost is relatively low.