A high-order conservative cut finite element method for problems in time-dependent domains

A mass-conservative high-order unfitted finite element method for convection–diffusion equations in evolving domains is proposed. The space–time method presented in [P. Hansbo, M. G. Larson, S. Zahedi, Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 307 (2016)] is extended to naturally achieve mass conservation by utilizing Reynolds’ transport theorem. Furthermore, by partitioning the time-dependent domain into macroelements, a more efficient stabilization procedure for the cut finite element method in time-dependent domains is presented. Numerical experiments illustrate that the method fulfills mass conservation, attains high-order convergence, and the condition number of the resulting system matrix is controlled while sparsity is increased. Problems in bulk domains as well as coupled bulk-surface problems are considered.