Efficient and robust monolithic finite element multilevel Krylov subspace solvers for the solution of stationary incompressible Navier-Stokes equations

Multigrid methods belong to the best-known methods for solving linear systems arising from the discretization of elliptic partial differential equations. The main attraction of multigrid methods is that they have an asymptotically meshindependent convergence behavior. Multigrid with Vanka (or local multilevel pressure Schur complement method) as smoother have been frequently used for the construction of very effcient coupled monolithic solvers for the solution of the stationary incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in 2D and 3D. However, due to its innate Gauß-Seidel/Jacobi character, Vanka has a strong influence of the underlying mesh, and therefore, coupled multigrid solvers with Vanka smoothing very frequently face convergence issues on meshes with high aspect ratios. Moreover, even on very nice regular grids, these solvers may fail when the anisotropies are introduced from the differential operator. In this thesis, we develop a new class of robust and efficient monolithic finite element multilevel Krylov subspace methods (MLKM) for the solution of the stationary incompressible Navier-Stokes equations as an alternative to the coupled multigrid-based solvers. Different from multigrid, the MLKM utilizes a Krylov method as the basis in the error reduction process. The solver is based on the multilevel projection-based method of Erlangga and Nabben, which accelerates the convergence of the Krylov subspace methods by shifting the small eigenvalues of the system matrix, responsible for the slow convergence of the Krylov iteration, to the largest eigenvalue. Before embarking on the Navier-Stokes equations, we first test our implementation of the MLKM solver by solving scalar model problems, namely the convection-diffusion problem and the anisotropic diffusion problem. We validate the method by solving several standard benchmark problems. Next, we present the numerical results for the solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in two dimensions. The results show that the MLKM solvers produce asymptotically mesh-size independent, as well as Reynolds number independent convergence rates, for a moderate range of Reynolds numbers. Moreover, numerical simulations also show that the coupled MLKM solvers can handle (both mesh and operator based) anisotropies better than the coupled multigrid solvers

Two-level algorithms for Rannacher-Turek FEM

In this paper a multiplicative two-level preconditioning algorithm for second order elliptic boundary value problems is considered, where the discretization is done using Rannacher-Turek non-conforming rotated bilinear finite elements on quadrilaterals. An important point to make is that in this case the finite element spaces corresponding to two successive levels of mesh refinement are not nested in general. To handle this, a proper two-level basis is required to enable us to fit the general framework for the construction of two-level preconditioners originally introduced for conforming finite elements. The proposed variant of hierarchical two-level splitting is first defined in a rather general setting. Then, the involved parameters are studied and optimized. The major contribution of the paper is the derived uniform estimates of the constant in the strengthened CBS inequality which allow the efficient multilevel extension of the related two-level preconditioners

Schnelle Löser für Partielle Differentialgleichungen

The workshop Schnelle Löser für partielle Differentialgleichungen, organised by Randolph E. Bank (La Jolla), Wolfgang Hackbusch (Leipzig), and Gabriel Wittum (Frankfurt am Main), was held May 22nd–May 28th, 2011. This meeting was well attended by 54 participants with broad geographic representation from 7 countries and 3 continents. This workshop was a nice blend of researchers with various backgrounds