Divergence‐free tangential finite element methods for incompressible flows on surfaces

In this work we consider the numerical solution of incompressible flows on two‐dimensional manifolds. Whereas the compatibility demands of the velocity and the pressure spaces are known from the flat case one further has to deal with the approximation of a velocity field that lies only in the tangential space of the given geometry. Abandoning H (1)‐conformity allows us to construct finite elements which are—due to an application of the Piola transformation—exactly tangential. To reintroduce continuity (in a weak sense) we make use of (hybrid) discontinuous Galerkin techniques. To further improve this approach, [Formula: see text] ‐conforming finite elements can be used to obtain exactly divergence‐free velocity solutions. We present several new finite element discretizations. On a number of numerical examples we examine and compare their qualitative properties and accuracy.