Error Analysis of BDF-Galerkin FEMs for Thermally Coupled Incompressible MHD with Temperature Dependent Parameters

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the electromagnetically and thermally driven flow which is modeled by evolutionary magnetohydrodynamic equations and heat equation coupled through generalized Boussinesq approximation with temperature-dependent coefficients. Based on a third-order backward differential formula for temporal discretization, mixed finite element approximation for spatial discretization and extrapolated treatments in linearization for nonlinear terms, a linearized backward differentiation formula type scheme for the considered equations is proposed and analysed. Optimal $L^2$-error estimates for the proposed fully discretized scheme are obtained by the temporal-spatial error splitting technique. Numerical examples are presented to check the accuracy and efficiency of the scheme.