Abstract: A streamline upwind finite element method using 6-node triangular element is presented. The method is applied to the convection term of the governing transport equation directly along local streamlines. Several convective-diffusion examples are used to evaluate efficiency of the method. Results show that the method is monotonic and does not produce any oscillation. In addition, an adaptive meshing technique is combined with the method to further increase accuracy of the solution, and at the same time, to minimize computational time and computer memory requirement.

Key words: streamline upwind, finite element method, convective-diffusion problem