Improvements to enhance robustness of third-order scale-independent WENO-Z schemes

Although there are many improvements to WENO3-Z that target the achievement of optimal order in the occurrence of the first-order critical point (CP1), they mainly address resolution performance, while the robustness of schemes is of less concern and lacks understanding accordingly. In light of our analysis considering the occurrence of critical points within grid intervals, we theoretically prove that it is impossible for a scale-independent scheme that has the stencil of WENO3-Z to fulfill the above order achievement, and current scale-dependent improvements barely fulfill the job when CP1 occurs at the middle of the grid cell. In order to achieve scale-independent improvements, we devise new smoothness indicators that increase the error order from 2 to 4 when CP1 occurs and perform more stably. Meanwhile, we construct a new global smoothness indicator that increases the error order from 4 to 5 similarly, through which new nonlinear weights with regard to WENO3-Z are derived and new scale-independents improvements, namely WENO-ZES2 and -ZES3, are acquired. Through 1D scalar and Euler tests, as well as 2D computations, in comparison with typical scale-dependent improvement, the following performances of the proposed schemes are demonstrated: The schemes can achieve third-order accuracy at CP1 no matter its location in the stencil, indicate high resolution in resolving flow subtleties, and manifest strong robustness in hypersonic simulations (e.g., the accomplishment of computations on hypersonic half-cylinder flow with Mach numbers reaching 16 and 19, respectively, as well as essentially non-oscillatory solutions of inviscid sharp double cone flow at M=9.59), which contrasts the comparative WENO3-Z improvement

An Adaptive Characteristic-wise Reconstruction WENOZ scheme for Gas Dynamic Euler Equations

Due to its excellent shock-capturing capability and high resolution, the WENO scheme family has been widely used in varieties of compressive flow simulation. However, for problems containing strong shocks and contact discontinuities, such as the Lax shock tube problem, the WENO scheme still produces numerical oscillations. To avoid such numerical oscillations, the characteristic-wise construction method should be applied. Compared to component-wise reconstruction, characteristic-wise reconstruction leads to much more computational cost and thus is not suite for large scale simulation such as direct numeric simulation of turbulence. In this paper, an adaptive characteristic-wise reconstruction WENO scheme, i.e. the AdaWENO scheme, is proposed to improve the computational efficiency of the characteristic-wise reconstruction method. The new scheme performs characteristic-wise reconstruction near discontinuities while switching to component-wise reconstruction for smooth regions. Meanwhile, a new calculation strategy for the WENO smoothness indicators is implemented to reduce over-all computational cost. Several one dimensional and two dimensional numerical tests are performed to validate and evaluate the AdaWENO scheme. Numerical results show that AdaWENO maintains essentially non-oscillatory flow field near discontinuities as the characteristic-wise reconstruction method. Besieds, compared to the component-wise reconstruction, AdaWENO is about 40\% faster which indicates its excellent efficiency

Low-diffusivity scalar transport using a WENO scheme and dual meshing

Interfacial mass transfer of low-diffusive substances in an unsteady flow environment is marked by a very thin boundary layer at the interface and other regions with steep concentration gradients. A numerical scheme capable of resolving accurately most details of this process is presented. In this scheme, the fourth-order accurate WENO method developed by Liu et al. (1994) was implemented on a non-uniform staggered mesh to discretize the scalar convection while for the scalar diffusion a fourth-order accurate central discretization was employed. The discretization of the scalar convection-diffusion equation was combined with a fourth-order Navier-Stokes solver which solves the incompressible flow. A dual meshing strategy was employed, in which the scalar was solved on a finer mesh than the incompressible flow. The solver was tested by performing a number of two-dimensional simulations of an unstably stratified flow with low diffusivity scalar transport. The unstable stratification led to buoyant convection which was modelled using a Boussinesq approximation with a linear relationship between flow temperature and density. The order of accuracy for one-dimensional scalar transport on a stretched and uniform grid was also tested. The results show that for the method presented above a relatively coarse mesh is sufficient to accurately describe the fluid flow, while the use of a refined mesh for the low-diffusive scalars is found to be beneficial in order to obtain a highly accurate resolution with negligible numerical diffusion