Abstract: This paper extends the results of Matthies, Skrzypacz, and Tubiska for the Oseen problem to the Navier-Stokes problem. For the stationary incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, a local projection stabilized finite element scheme is proposed. The scheme overcomes convection domination and improves the restrictive inf-sup condition. It not only is a two-level approach but also is adaptive for pairs of spaces defined on the same mesh. Using the approximation and projection spaces defined on the same mesh, the scheme leads to much more compact stencils than other two-level approaches. On the same mesh, besides the class of local projection stabilization by enriching the approximation spaces, two new classes of local projection stabilization of the approximation spaces are derived, which do not need to be enriched by bubble functions. Based on a special interpolation, the stability and optimal prior error estimates are shown. Numerical results agree with some benchmark solutions and theoretical analysis very well.

Key words: local projection, Navier-Stokes equations, Reynolds number