On the convergence of a finite volume method for the Navier-Stokes-Fourier system

Abstract: We study convergence of a finite volume scheme for the Navier-Stokes-Fourier system describing the motion of compressible viscous and heat conducting fluids. The numerical flux uses upwinding with an additional numerical diffusion of order $\mathcal{O} (h^{ \varepsilon+1})$, $0<\varepsilon<1$. The approximate solutions are piecewise constant functions with respect to the underlying mesh. We show that any uniformly bounded sequence of numerical solutions converges unconditionally to the solution of the Navier-Stokes-Fourier system. In particular, the existence of the solution to the Navier-Stokes-Fourier system is not a priori assumed.