A stabilization technique for coupled convection-diffusion-reaction equations

Partial differential equations having diffusive, convective, and reactive terms appear in the modeling of a large variety of processes in several branches of science. Often, several species or components interact with each other, rendering strongly coupled systems of convection-diffusion-reaction equations. Exact solutions are available in extremely few cases lacking practical interest due to the simplifications made to render such equations amenable by analytical tools. Then, numerical approximation remains the best strategy for solving these problems. The properties of these systems of equations, particularly the lack of sufficient physical diffusion, cause most traditional numerical methods to fail, with the appearance of violent and nonphysical oscillations, even for the single equation case. For systems of equations, the situation is even harder due to the lack of fundamental principles guiding numerical discretization. Therefore, strategies must be developed in order to obtain physically meaningful and numerically stable approximations. Such stabilization techniques have been extensively developed for the single equation case in contrast to the multiple equations case. This paper presents a perturbation-based stabilization technique for coupled systems of one-dimensional convection-diffusion-reaction equations. Its characteristics are discussed, providing evidence of its versatility and effectiveness through a thorough assessment.