A second-order maximum principle preserving finite volume method for steady convection-diffusion problems

A cell-centered finite volume method is proposed to approximate numerically the solution to the steady convection-diffusion equation on unstructured meshes of $d$-simplexes, where $d\geq 2$ is the spatial dimension. The method is formally second-order accurate by means of a piecewise linear reconstruction within each cell and at mesh vertices. An algorithm is provided to calculate nonnegative and bounded weights. Face gradients, required to discretize the diffusive fluxes, are defined by a nonlinear strategy that allows us to demonstrate the existence of a maximum principle. Finally, a set of numerical results documents the performance of the method in treating problems with internal layers and solutions with strong gradients.