A Provably Stable Discontinuous Galerkin Spectral Element Approximation for Moving Hexahedral Meshes

We design a novel provably stable discontinuous Galerkin spectral element (DGSEM) approximation to solve systems of conservation laws on moving domains. To incorporate the motion of the domain, we use an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation to map the governing equations to a fixed reference domain. The approximation is made stable by a discretization of a skew-symmetric formulation of the problem. We prove that the discrete approximation is stable, conservative and, for constant coefficient problems, maintains the free-stream preservation property. We also provide details on how to add the new skew-symmetric ALE approximation to an existing discontinuous Galerkin spectral element code. Lastly, we provide numerical support of the theoretical results

Construction of Modern Robust Nodal Discontinuous Galerkin Spectral Element Methods for the Compressible Navier-Stokes Equations

Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods have a long history in computational physics and engineering to approximate solutions of partial differential equations due to their high-order accuracy and geometric flexibility. However, DG is not perfect and there remain some issues. Concerning robustness, DG has undergone an extensive transformation over the past seven years into its modern form that provides statements on solution boundedness for linear and nonlinear problems. This chapter takes a constructive approach to introduce a modern incarnation of the DG spectral element method for the compressible Navier-Stokes equations in a three-dimensional curvilinear context. The groundwork of the numerical scheme comes from classic principles of spectral methods including polynomial approximations and Gauss-type quadratures. We identify aliasing as one underlying cause of the robustness issues for classical DG spectral methods. Removing said aliasing errors requires a particular differentiation matrix and careful discretization of the advective flux terms in the governing equations.Comment: 85 pages, 2 figures, book chapte

Mesh adaptation for high-order flow simulations

Mesh adaptation has only been considered for high-order flow simulations in recent years and many techniques are still to be made more robust and efficient with curvilinear meshes required by these high-order methods. This thesis covers the developments made to improve the mesh generation and adaptation capabilities of the open-source spectral/hp element framework Nektar++ and its dedicated mesh utility NekMesh. This thesis first covers the generation of quality initial meshes typically required before an iterative adaptation procedure can be used. For optimal performance of the spectral/hp element method, quadrilateral and hexahedral meshes are preferred and two methods are presented to achieve this, either entirely or partially. The first method, inspired from cross field methods, solves a Laplace problem to obtain a guiding field from which a valid two-dimensional quadrilateral block decomposition can be automatically obtained. In turn, naturally curved meshes are generated. The second method takes advantage of the medial axis to generate structured partitions in the boundary layer region of three-dimensional domains. The method proves to be robust in generating hybrid high-order meshes with boundary layer aligned prismatic elements near boundaries and tetrahedral elements elsewhere. The thesis goes on to explore the adaptation of high-order meshes for the simulation of flows using a spectral/hp element formulation. First a new approach to moving meshes, referred to here as r-adaptation, based on a variational framework, is described. This new r-adaptation module is then enhanced by p-adaptation for the simulation of compressible inviscid flows with shocks. Where the flow is smooth, p-adaptation is used to benefit from the spectral convergence of the spectral/hp element methods. Where the flow is discontinuous, e.g. at shock waves, r-adaptation clusters nodes together to better capture these field discontinuities. The benefits of this dual, rp-adaptation approach are demonstrated through two-dimensional benchmark test cases.Open Acces

High-order (hybridized) discontinuous Galerkin method for geophysical flows

As computational research has grown, simulation has become a standard tool in many fields of academic and industrial areas. For example, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools in aerospace and research facilities are widely used to evaluate the aerodynamic performance of aircraft or wings. Weather forecasts are highly dependent on numerical weather prediction (NWP) model. However, it is still difficult to simulate the complex physical phenomena of a wide range of length and time scales with modern computational resources. In this study, we develop a robust, efficient and high-order accurate numerical methods and techniques to tackle the challenges. First, we use high-order spatial discretization using (hybridized) discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods. The DG method combines the advantages of finite volume and finite element methods. As such, it is well-suited to problems with large gradients including shocks and with complex geometries, and large-scale simulations. However, DG typically has many degrees-of-freedoms. To mitigate the expense, we use hybridized DG (HDG) method that introduces new “trace unknowns” on the mesh skeleton (mortar interfaces) to eliminate the local “volume unknowns” with static condensation procedure and reduces globally coupled system when implicit time-stepping is required. Also, since the information between the elements is exchanged through the mesh skeleton, the mortar interfaces can be used as a glue to couple multi-phase regions, e.g., solid and fluid regions, or non-matching grids, e.g., a rotating mesh and a stationary mesh. That is the HDG method provides an efficient and flexible coupling environment compared to standard DG methods. Second, we develop an HDG-DG IMEX scheme for an efficient time integrating scheme. The idea is to divide the governing equations into stiff and nonstiff parts, implicitly treat the former with HDG methods, and explicitly treat the latter with DG methods. The HDG-DG IMEX scheme facilitates high-order temporal and spatial solutions, avoiding too small a time step. Numerical results show that the HDG-DG IMEX scheme is comparable to an explicit Runge-Kutta DG scheme in terms of accuracy while allowing for much larger timestep sizes. We also numerically observe that IMEX HDG-DG scheme can be used as a tool to suppress the high-frequency modes such as acoustic waves or fast gravity waves in atmospheric or ocean models. In short, IMEX HDG-DG methods are attractive for applications in which a fast and stable solution is important while permitting inaccurate processing of the fast modes. Third, we also develop an EXPONENTIAL DG scheme for an efficient time integrators. Similar to the IMEX method, the governing equations are separated into linear and nonlinear parts, then the two parts are spatially discretized with DG methods. Next, we analytically integrate the linear term and approximate the nonlinear term with respect to time. This method accurately handles the fast wave modes in the linear operator. To efficiently evaluate a matrix exponential, we employ the cutting-edge adaptive Krylov subspace method. Finally, we develop a sliding-mesh interface by combining nonconforming treatment and the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) scheme for simulating rotating flows, which are important to estimate the characteristics of a rotating wind turbine or understanding vortical structures shown in atmospheric or astronomical phenomena. To integrate the rotating motion of the domain, we use the ALE formulation to map the governing equation to the stationary reference domain and introduce mortar interfaces between the stationary mesh and the rotating mesh. The mortar structure on the sliding interface changes dynamically as the mesh rotatesEngineering Mechanic