  In numerical simulations a smooth domain occupied by a fluid has to be approximated by a computational domain that typically does not coincide with a physical domain. Consequently, in order to study convergence and error estimates of a numerical method domain-related discretization errors, the so-called variational crimes, need to be taken into account. In this paper we present an elegant alternative to a direct, but rather technical, analysis of variational crimes by means of the penalty approach. We embed the physical domain into a large enough cubed domain and study the convergence of a finite volume method for the corresponding domain-penalized problem. We show that numerical solutions of the penalized problem converge to a generalized, the so-called dissipative weak, solution of the original problem. If a strong solution exists, the dissipative weak solution emanating from the same initial data coincides with the strong solution. In this case, we apply a novel tool of the relative energy and derive the error estimates between the numerical solution and the strong solution. Extensive numerical experiments that confirm theoretical results are presented. 
Convergence and error estimates of a penalization finite volume method   for the compressible Navier-Stokes system