The filling pattern and an adaptive grid refinement based on the finite element method and Eulerian mesh advancement approach have been developed to analyze incompressible transient viscous flow with free surfaces. The governing equation fur flow analysis is Navier-Stokes equation including inertia and gravity effects. The mixed FE formulation and predictor-corrector method are used effectively for unsteady numerical simulation. The flow front surface and the volume inflow rate are calculated using the filling pattern technique to select an adequate pattern among seven filling patterns at each tetrahedral control volume. By adaptive grid refinement, the new flow field that renders better prediction in flow surface shape is generated and the velocity field at the flow front part is calculated more exactly. In this domain the elements in the surface region are made finer than those in the remaining regions for more efficient computation. The collapse of a water dam and the filling of a fluidity spiral have been analyzed. The numerical results have been in good agreement with the experimental results and the efficiency of the adaptive grid refinement and filling pattern techniques have been verified.