Defect correction method for viscoelastic fluid flows at high Weissenberg number

We study a defect correction method for the approximation of viscoelastic fluid flow. In the defect step, the constitutive equation is computed with an artificially reduced Weissenberg parameter for stability, and the resulting residual is corrected in the correction step. We prove the convergence of the defect correction method and derive an error estimate for the Oseen-viscoelastic model problem. The derived theoretical results are supported by numerical tests for both the Oseen-viscoelastic problem and the John son-Segalman model problem. (c) 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.