Spurious behavior of shock-capturing methods by the fractional step approach: Problems containing stiff source terms and discontinuities

The goal of this paper is to relate numerical dissipations that are inherited in high order shock-capturing schemes with the onset of wrong propagation speed of discontinuities. For pointwise evaluation of the source term, previous studies indicated that the phenomenon of wrong propagation speed of discontinuities is connected with the smearing of the discontinuity caused by the discretization of the advection term. The present study focuses only on solving the reactive system by the fractional step method using the Strang splitting. Studies shows that the degree of wrong propagation speed of discontinuities is highly dependent on the accuracy of the numerical method. The manner in which the smearing of discontinuities is contained by the numerical method and the overall amount of numerical dissipation being employed play major roles. Depending on the numerical method, time step and grid spacing, the numerical simulation may lead to (a) the correct solution (within the truncation error of the scheme), (b) a divergent solution, (c) a wrong propagation speed of discontinuities solution or (d) other spurious solutions that are solutions of the discretized counterparts but are not solutions of the governing equations. The findings might shed some light on the reported difficulties in numerical combustion and problems with stiff nonlinear (homogeneous) source terms and discontinuities in general

Solving 3D relativistic hydrodynamical problems with WENO discontinuous Galerkin methods

Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods coupled to WENO algorithms allow high order convergence for smooth problems and for the simulation of discontinuities and shocks. In this work, we investigate WENO-DG algorithms in the context of numerical general relativity, in particular for general relativistic hydrodynamics. We implement the standard WENO method at different orders, a compact (simple) WENO scheme, as well as an alternative subcell evolution algorithm. To evaluate the performance of the different numerical schemes, we study non-relativistic, special relativistic, and general relativistic testbeds. We present the first three-dimensional simulations of general relativistic hydrodynamics, albeit for a fixed spacetime background, within the framework of WENO-DG methods. The most important testbed is a single TOV-star in three dimensions, showing that long term stable simulations of single isolated neutron stars can be obtained with WENO-DG methods.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure

A study of numerical methods for hyperbolic conservation laws with stiff source terms

The proper modeling of nonequilibrium gas dynamics is required in certain regimes of hypersonic flow. For inviscid flow this gives a system of conservation laws coupled with source terms representing the chemistry. Often a wide range of time scales is present in the problem, leading to numerical difficulties as in stiff systems of ordinary differential equations. Stability can be achieved by using implicit methods, but other numerical difficulties are observed. The behavior of typical numerical methods on a simple advection equation with a parameter-dependent source term was studied. Two approaches to incorporate the source term were utilized: MacCormack type predictor-corrector methods with flux limiters, and splitting methods in which the fluid dynamics and chemistry are handled in separate steps. Various comparisons over a wide range of parameter values were made. In the stiff case where the solution contains discontinuities, incorrect numerical propagation speeds are observed with all of the methods considered. This phenomenon is studied and explained

Numerical Dissipation and Wrong Propagation Speed of Discontinuities for Stiff Source Terms

In compressible turbulent combustion/nonequilibrium flows, the constructions of numerical schemes for (a) stable and accurate simulation of turbulence with strong shocks, and (b) obtaining correct propagation speed of discontinuities for stiff reacting terms on coarse grids share one important ingredient - minimization of numerical dissipation while maintaining numerical stability. Here coarse grids means standard mesh density requirement for accurate simulation of typical non-reacting flows. This dual requirement to achieve both numerical stability and accuracy with zero or minimal use of numerical dissipation is most often conflicting for existing schemes that were designed for non-reacting flows. The goal of this paper is to relate numerical dissipations that are inherited in a selected set of high order shock-capturing schemes with the onset of wrong propagation speed of discontinuities for two representative stiff detonation wave problems

On the application of subcell resolution to conservation laws with stiff source terms

LeVeque and Yee recently investigated a one-dimensional scalar conservation law with stiff source terms modeling the reacting flow problems and discovered that for the very stiff case most of the current finite difference methods developed for non-reacting flows would produce wrong solutions when there is a propagating discontinuity. A numerical scheme, essentially nonoscillatory/subcell resolution - characteristic direction (ENO/SRCD), is proposed for solving conservation laws with stiff source terms. This scheme is a modification of Harten's ENO scheme with subcell resolution, ENO/SR. The locations of the discontinuities and the characteristic directions are essential in the design. Strang's time-splitting method is used and time evolutions are done by advancing along the characteristics. Numerical experiment using this scheme shows excellent results on the model problem of LeVeque and Yee. Comparisons of the results of ENO, ENO/SR, and ENO/SRCD are also presented

Spurious Behavior of Shock-Capturing Methods: Problems Containing Stiff Source Terms and Discontinuities

The goal of this paper is to relate numerical dissipations that are inherited in high order shock-capturing schemes with the onset of wrong propagation speed of discontinuities. For pointwise evaluation of the source term, previous studies indicated that the phenomenon of wrong propagation speed of discontinuities is connected with the smearing of the discontinuity caused by the discretization of the advection term. The smearing introduces a nonequilibrium state into the calculation. Thus as soon as a nonequilibrium value is introduced in this manner, the source term turns on and immediately restores equilibrium, while at the same time shifting the discontinuity to a cell boundary. The present study is to show that the degree of wrong propagation speed of discontinuities is highly dependent on the accuracy of the numerical method. The manner in which the smearing of discontinuities is contained by the numerical method and the overall amount of numerical dissipation being employed play major roles. Moreover, employing finite time steps and grid spacings that are below the standard Courant-Friedrich-Levy (CFL) limit on shockcapturing methods for compressible Euler and Navier-Stokes equations containing stiff reacting source terms and discontinuities reveals surprising counter-intuitive results. Unlike non-reacting flows, for stiff reactions with discontinuities, employing a time step and grid spacing that are below the CFL limit (based on the homogeneous part or non-reacting part of the governing equations) does not guarantee a correct solution of the chosen governing equations. Instead, depending on the numerical method, time step and grid spacing, the numerical simulation may lead to (a) the correct solution (within the truncation error of the scheme), (b) a divergent solution, (c) a wrong propagation speed of discontinuities solution or (d) other spurious solutions that are solutions of the discretized counterparts but are not solutions of the governing equations. The present investigation for three very different stiff system cases confirms some of the findings of Lafon & Yee (1996) and LeVeque & Yee (1990) for a model scalar PDE. The findings might shed some light on the reported difficulties in numerical combustion and problems with stiff nonlinear (homogeneous) source terms and discontinuities in general

High order finite difference methods with subcell resolution for stiff multispecies detonation capturing

In this paper, we extend the high order finite-difference method with subcell resolution (SR) in [33] for two-species stiff one-reaction models to multispecies and multireaction chemical reactive flows, which are significantly more difficult because of the multiple scales generated by different reactions. For reaction problems, when the reaction time scale is very small, the reaction zone scale is also small and the governing equations become very stiff. Wrong propagation speed of discontinuity may occur due to the underresolved numerical solution in both space and time. The present SR method for reactive Euler system is a fractional step method. In the convection step, any high order shock-capturing method can be used. In the reaction step, an ODE solver is applied but with certain computed flow variables in the shock region modified by the Harten subcell resolution idea. Several numerical examples of multispecies and multireaction reactive flows are performed in both one and two dimensions. Studies demonstrate that the SR method can capture the correct propagation speed of discontinuities in very coarse meshes

On spurious numerics in solving reactive equations

1. Motivation and objectives Consider 3D reactive Euler equations of the form Ut + F(U)x + G(U)y + H(U)z = S(U), (1.1) where U, F(U), G(U), H(U) and S(U) are vectors. Here, the source term S(U) is restricted to be homogeneous in U; that is, (x, y, z) and t do not appear explicitly in S(U). If physical viscosities are present, viscous flux derivative should be added. If the time scale of the ordinary differential equation (ODE) Ut = S(U) for the source term is orders of magnitude smaller than the time scale of the homogeneous conservation law Ut +F(U)x +G(U)y +H(U)z = 0, then the problem is said to be stiff due to the source terms. In combustion or high speed chemical reacting flows the source term represents the chemical reactions which may be much faster than the gas flow, leading to problems of numerical stiffness. Insufficient spatial/temporal resolution may cause an incorrect propagation speed of discontinuities and nonphysical states for standard numerical methods that were developed for non-reacting flows. See Wang et al. (2012) for a comprehensive overview of the last two decades of development. Schemes designed to improve the prediction of propagation speed of discontinuities for systems of stiff reacting flows remain a challenge for algorithm development (Wang et al. 2012). Wang et al. also proposed a new high order finite difference method with subcell resolution for advection equations with stiff source terms for a single reaction for (1.1) to overcome this difficulty. Research for multi-species (or more species and multi-reactions) is forthcoming. The objective of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the behavior of high order shock-capturing schemes for problems with stiff source terms and discontinuities and on corresponding numerical prediction strategies. The studies by Yee et al. (2012) and Wang et al. (2012) focus only on solving the reactive system by the fractional step method using the Strang splitting (Strang 1968). It is a common practice by developers in computational physics and engineering simulations to include a cut off safeguard if densities are outside the permissible range. Here we compare the spurious behavior of the same schemes by solving the fully coupled reactive system without the Strang splitting vs. using the Strang splitting. Comparison between the two procedures and the effects of a cut off safeguard is the focus the present study. The comparison of the performance of these schemes is largely based on the degree to which each method captures the correct location of the reaction front for coarse grids. Here “coarse grids” means standard mesh density requirement for accurate simulation of typical non-reacting flows of similar problem setup. It is remarked that, in order to resolve the sharp reaction front, local refinement beyond standard mesh density is still needed. For reacting flows there are different ways in formulating (1.1). The present study considers the following two commonly used formulations. These are using all the species variables vs. using the total density and Ns − 1 number of species variables (Ns is the total number of species)