A finite volume method for approximating 3D diffusion operators on general meshes

A finite volume method is presented for discretizing 3D diffusion operators with variable full tensor coefficients. This method handles anisotropic, non-symmetric or discontinuous variable tensor coefficients while distorted, non-matching or non-convex n-faced polyhedron meshes can be used. For meshes of polyhedra whose faces have not more than four edges, the associated matrix is positive definite (and symmetric if the diffusion tensor is symmetric). A second-order (resp. first-order) accuracy is numerically observed for the solution (resp. gradient of the solution).