Convergence of vanishing capillarity approximations for scalar conservation laws with discontinuous fluxes

Abstract

Flow of two phases in a heterogeneous porous medium is modeled by a scalar conservation law with a discontinuous coefficient. As solutions of conservation laws with discontinuous coefficients depend explicitly on the underlying small scale effects, we consider a model where the relevant small scale effect is dynamic capillary pressure. We prove that the limit of vanishing dynamic capillary pressure exists and is a weak solution of the corresponding scalar conservation law with discontinuous coefficient. A robust numerical scheme for approximating the resulting limit solutions is introduced. Numerical experiments show that the scheme is able to approximate interesting solution features such as propagating non-classical shock waves as well as discontinuous standing waves efficiently.