A Riemann Difference Scheme for Shock Capturing in Discontinuous Finite Element Methods

Abstract: We present a novel structure-preserving numerical scheme for discontinuous finite element approximations of nonlinear hyperbolic systems. The method can be understood as a generalization of the Lax-Friedrichs flux to a high-order staggered grid and does not depend on any tunable parameters. Under a presented set of conditions, we show that the method is conservative and invariant domain preserving. Numerical experiments on the Euler equations show the ability of the scheme to resolve discontinuities without introducing excessive spurious oscillations or dissipation.