Numerical simulation of two-dimensional incompressible viscous flows around
an obstacle is considered. Two horizontal straight line artificial boundar
ies ale introduced and the original flow is approximated by a flow in an in
finite channel with slip boundary condition on the wall. Then two vertical
segment artificial boundaries are introduced and a series of approximate ar
tificial boundary conditions on them are derived by imposing the continuity
of velocity and the normal stress. Thus the original problem is reduced to
a problem defined in a bounded computational domain. The well-posedness of
the reduced problem is proved. The finite element approximation of this pr
oblem is given and error estimates are obtained. Furthermore numerical exam
ples show the accuracy and efficiency of our artificial boundary conditions
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