Box schemes on quadrilateral meshes

Box schemes (finite volume methods) are widely used in fluiddynamics, especially for the solution of conservation laws. In this paper two box-schemes for elliptic equations are analysed with respect to quadrilateral meshes. Using a variational formulation, we gain stability theorems for two different box methods, namely the so-called diagonal boxes and the centre boxes. The analysis is based on an elementwise eigenvalue problem. Stability can only be guaranteed under additional assumptions on the geometry of the quadrilaterals. For the diagonal boxes unsuitable elements can lead to global instabilities. The centre boxes are more robust and differ not so much from the finite element approach. In the stable case, convergence results up to second order are proved with well-known techniques.