discretize.TreeMesh.average_face_to_cell

TreeMesh.average_face_to_cell

Averaging operator from faces to cell centers (scalar quantities).

This property constructs a 2nd order averaging operator that maps scalar quantities from faces to cell centers. This averaging operator is used when a discrete scalar quantity defined on mesh faces must be projected to cell centers. Once constructed, the operator is stored permanently as a property of the mesh. See notes.

Returns:

(n_cells, n_faces) scipy.sparse.csr_matrix

The scalar averaging operator from faces to cell centers

Notes

Let \(\boldsymbol{\phi_f}\) be a discrete scalar quantity that lives on mesh faces. average_face_to_cell constructs a discrete linear operator \(\mathbf{A_{fc}}\) that projects \(\boldsymbol{\phi_f}\) to cell centers, i.e.:

\[\boldsymbol{\phi_c} = \mathbf{A_{fc}} \, \boldsymbol{\phi_f}\]

where \(\boldsymbol{\phi_c}\) approximates the value of the scalar quantity at cell centers. For each cell, we are simply averaging the values defined on its faces. The operation is implemented as a matrix vector product, i.e.:

phi_c = Afc @ phi_f