Robust stabilised finite element solvers for generalised Newtonian fluid flows

Various materials and solid-fluid mixtures of engineering and biomedical interest can be modelled as generalised Newtonian fluids, as their apparent viscosity depends locally on the flow field. Despite the particular features of such models, it is common practice to combine them with numerical techniques originally conceived for Newtonian fluids, which can bring several issues such as spurious pressure boundary layers, unsuitable natural boundary conditions and coupling terms spoiling the efficiency of nonlinear solvers and preconditioners. In this work, we present a finite element framework dealing with such issues while maintaining low computational cost and simple implementation. The building blocks of our algorithm are (i) an equal-order stabilisation method preserving consistency even for lowest-order discretisations, (ii) robust extrapolation of velocities in the time-dependent case to decouple the rheological law from the overall system, (iii) adaptive time step selection and (iv) a fast physics-based preconditioned Krylov subspace solver, to tackle the relevant range of discretisation parameters including highly varying viscosity. Selected numerical experiments are provided demonstrating the potential of our approach in terms of robustness, accuracy and efficiency for problems of practical interest

Pressure-robustness and discrete Helmholtz projectors in mixed finite element methods for the incompressible Navier--Stokes equations

Recently, it was understood how to repair a certain L2-orthogonality of discretely-divergence-free vector fields and gradient fields such that the velocity error of inf-sup stable discretizations for the incompressible Stokes equations becomes pressure-independent. These new 'pressure-robust' Stokes discretizations deliver a small velocity error, whenever the continuous velocity field can be well approximated on a given grid. On the contrary, classical inf-sup stable Stokes discretizations can guarantee a small velocity error only, when both the velocity and the pressure field can be approximated well, simultaneously. In this contribution, 'pressure-robustness' is extended to the time-dependent Navier--Stokes equations. In particular, steady and time-dependent potential flows are shown to build an entire class of benchmarks, where pressure-robust discretizations can outperform classical approaches significantly. Speedups will be explained by a new theoretical concept, the 'discrete Helmholtz projector' of an inf-sup stable discretization. Moreover, different discrete nonlinear convection terms are discussed, and skew-symmetric pressure-robust discretizations are proposed

Pressure-robustness and discrete Helmholtz projectors in mixed finite element methods for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations

Recently, it was understood how to repair a certain L2-orthogonality of discretely-divergence-free vector fields and gradient fields such that the velocity error of inf-sup stable discretizations for the incompressible Stokes equations becomes pressure-independent. These new pressure-robust Stokes discretizations deliver a small velocity error, whenever the continuous velocity field can be well approximated on a given grid. On the contrary, classical inf-sup stable Stokes discretizations can guarantee a small velocity error only, when both the velocity and the pressure field can be approximated well, simultaneously. In this contribution, pressure-robustness is extended to the time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations. In particular, steady and time-dependent potential flows are shown to build an entire class of benchmarks, where pressure-robust discretizations can outperform classical approaches significantly. Speedups will be explained by a new theoretical concept, the discrete Helmholtz projector of an inf-sup stable discretization. Moreover, different discrete nonlinear convection terms are discussed, and skew-symmetric pressure-robust discretizations are proposed

A posteriori error estimates for fully discrete fractional-step ϑ-approximations for parabolic equations

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in IMA Journal of Numerical Analysis following peer review. The version of record A posteriori error estimates for fully discrete fractional-step ϑ-approximations for parabolic equations is available online at:http://imajna.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/07/20/imanum.drv035.abstract?sid=ab7d6b71-cb35-42ed-896f-f009b1fdc99eWe derive optimal order a posteriori error estimates for fully discrete approximations of initial and boundary value problems for linear parabolic equations. For the discretisation in time we apply the fractional-step #-scheme and for the discretisation in space the finite element method with finite element spaces that are allowed to change with time

Self-Adaptive Methods for PDE

[no abstract available