Analysis of Iterative Methods for the Steady and Unsteady Stokes Problem: Application to Spectral Element Discretizations

A new and detailed analysis of the basic Uzawa algorithm for decoupling of the pressure and the velocity in the steady and unsteady Stokes operator is presented. The paper focuses on the following new aspects: explicit construction of the Uzawa pressure-operator spectrum for a semiperiodic model problem; general relationship of the convergence rate of the Uzawa procedure to classical inf-sup discretization analysis; and application of the method to high-order variational discretization

Poloidal-toroidal decomposition in a finite cylinder. II. Discretization, regularization and validation

The Navier-Stokes equations in a finite cylinder are written in terms of poloidal and toroidal potentials in order to impose incompressibility. Regularity of the solutions is ensured in several ways: First, the potentials are represented using a spectral basis which is analytic at the cylindrical axis. Second, the non-physical discontinuous boundary conditions at the cylindrical corners are smoothed using a polynomial approximation to a steep exponential profile. Third, the nonlinear term is evaluated in such a way as to eliminate singularities. The resulting pseudo-spectral code is tested using exact polynomial solutions and the spectral convergence of the coefficients is demonstrated. Our solutions are shown to agree with exact polynomial solutions and with previous axisymmetric calculations of vortex breakdown and of nonaxisymmetric calculations of onset of helical spirals. Parallelization by azimuthal wavenumber is shown to be highly effective