. Conservation laws with source terms often have steady states in which the flux gradients are nonzero but exactly balanced by source terms. Many numerical methods (e.g., fractional step methods) have difficulty preserving such steady states and cannot accurately calculate small perturbations of such states. Here a variant of the wave-propagation algorithm is developed which addresses this problem by introducing a Riemann problem in the center of each grid cell whose flux difference exactly cancels the source term. This leads to modified Riemann problems at the cell edges in which the jump now corresponds to perturbations from the steady state. Computing waves and limiters based on the solution to these Riemann problems gives high-resolution results. The 1D and 2D shallow water equations for flow over arbitrary bottom topography are use as an example, though the ideas apply to many other systems. The method is easily implemented in the software package clawpack. Keywords: Godunov meth...

During the recent decades there was an enormous amount of activity related to the construction and analysis of modern algorithms for the approximate solution of nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws and related problems. To present some aspects of this successful activity, we discuss the analytical tools which are used in the development of convergence theories for these algorithms. These include classical compactness arguments (based on BV a priori estimates), the use of compensated compactness arguments (based on H^-1-compact entropy production), measure valued solutions (measured by their negative entropy production), and finally, we highlight the most recent addition to this bag of analytical tools -- the use of averaging lemmas which yield new compactness and regularity results for nonlinear conservation laws and related equations. We demonstrate how these analytical tools are used in the convergence analysis of approximate solutions for hyperbolic conservation laws and related equations. Our discussion includes examples of Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) finite-difference schemes; error estimates derived from the one-sided stability of Godunov-type methods for convex conservation laws (and their multidimensional analogue -- viscosity solutions of demi-concave Hamilton-Jacobi equations); we outline, in the one-dimensional case, the convergence proof of finite-element streamline-diffusion and spectral viscosity schemes based on the div-curl lemma; we also address the questions of convergence and error estimates for multidimensional finite-volume schemes on non-rectangular grids; and finally, we indicate the convergence of approximate solutions with underlying kinetic formulation, e.g., finite-volume and relaxation schemes, once their regularizing effect is quantified in terms of the averaging lemma.

Abstract. This paper investigates the behavior of numerical schemes for nonlinear conservation laws with source terms. We concentrate on two significant examples: relaxation approximations and genuinely nonhomogeneous scalar laws. The main tool in our analysis is the extensive use of weak limits and nonconservative products which allow us to describe accurately the operations achieved in practice when using Riemann-based numerical schemes. Some illustrative and relevant computational results are provided. 1.

Contents 1. Introduction : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 4 1.1 Software : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 6 1.2 Notation : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 7 1.3 Classification of differential equations : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 7 2. Derivation of conservation laws : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 10 2.1 The Euler equations of gas dynamics : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 13 2.2 Dissipative fluxes : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 14 2.3 Source terms : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 14 2.4 Radiative trans