On an Uzawa smoother in multigrid for poroelasticity equations

A poroelastic saturated medium can be modeled by means of Biot''s theory of consolidation. It describes the time-dependent interaction between the deformation of porous material and the fluid flow inside of it. Here, for the efficient solution of the poroelastic equations, a multigrid method is employed with an Uzawa-type iteration as the smoother. The Uzawa smoother is an equation-wise procedure. It shall be interpreted as a combination of the symmetric Gauss-Seidel smoothing for displacements, together with a Richardson iteration for the Schur complement in the pressure field. The Richardson iteration involves a relaxation parameter which affects the convergence speed, and has to be carefully determined. The analysis of the smoother is based on the framework of local Fourier analysis (LFA) and it allows us to provide an analytic bound of the smoothing factor of the Uzawa smoother as well as an optimal value of the relaxation parameter. Numerical experiments show that our upper bound provides a satisfactory estimate of the exact smoothing factor, and the selected relaxation parameter is optimal. In order to improve the convergence performance, the acceleration of multigrid by iterant recombination is taken into account. Numerical results confirm the efficiency and robustness of the acceleration scheme

Monolithic multigrid method for the coupled stokes flow and deformable porous medium system

The interaction between fluid flow and a deformable porous medium is a complicated multi-physics problem, which can be described by a coupled model based on the Stokes and poroelastic equations. A monolithic multigrid method together with either a coupled Vanka smoother or a decoupled Uzawa smoother is employed as an efficient numerical technique for the linear discrete system obtained by finite volumes on staggered grids. A specialty in our modeling approach is that at the interface of the fluid and poroelastic medium, two unknowns from the different subsystems are defined at the same grid point. We propose a special discretization at and near the points on the interface, which combines the approximation of the governing equations and the considered interface conditions. In the decoupled Uzawa smoother, Local Fourier Analysis (LFA) helps us to select optimal values of the relaxation parameter appearing. To implement the monolithic multigrid method, grid partitioning is used to deal with the interface updates when communication is required between two subdomains. Numerical experiments show that the proposed numerical method has an excellent convergence rate. The efficiency and robustness of the method are confirmed in numerical experiments with typically small realistic values of the physical coefficients

Uzawa smoother in multigrid for the coupleD porous medium and stokes flow system

The multigrid solution of coupled porous media and Stokes flow problems is considered. The Darcy equation as the saturated porous medium model is coupled to the Stokes equations by means of appropriate interface conditions. We focus on an efficient multigrid solution technique for the coupled problem, which is discretized by finite volumes on staggered grids, giving rise to a saddle point linear system. Special treatment is required regarding the discretization at the interface. An Uzawa smoother is employed in multigrid, which is a decoupled procedure based on symmetric Gauss–Seidel smoothing for velocity components and a simple Richardson iteration for the pressure field. Since a relaxation parameter is part of a Richardson iteration, local Fourier analysis is applied to determine the optimal parameters. Highly satisfactory multigrid convergence is reported, and, moreover, the algorithm performs very well for small values of the hydraulic conductivity and fluid viscosity, which are relevant for applications

Uzawa smoother in multigrid for the coupled porous medium and Stokes flow system

The multigrid solution of coupled porous media and Stokes flow problems is considered. The Darcy equation as the saturated porous medium model is coupled to the Stokes equations by means of appropriate interface conditions. We focus on an efficient multigrid solution technique for the coupled problem, which is discretized by finite volumes on staggered grids, giving rise to a saddle point linear system. Special treatment is required regarding the discretization at the interface. An Uzawa smoother is employed in multigrid, which is a decoupled procedure based on symmetric Gauss--Seidel smoothing for velocity components and a simple Richardson iteration for the pressure field. Since a relaxation parameter is part of a Richardson iteration, local Fourier analysis is applied to determine the optimal parameters. Highly satisfactory multigrid convergence is reported, and, moreover, the algorithm performs very well for small values of the hydraulic conductivity and fluid viscosity, which are relevant for applications

On the fixed-stress split scheme as smoother in multigrid methods for coupling flow and geomechanics

The fixed-stress split method has been widely used as solution method in the coupling of flow and geomechanics. In this work, we analyze the behavior of an inexact version of this algorithm as smoother within a geometric multigrid method, in order to obtain an efficient monolithic solver for Biot''s problem. This solver combines the advantages of being a fully coupled method, with the benefit of decoupling the flow and the mechanics part in the smoothing algorithm. Moreover, the fixed-stress split smoother is based on the physics of the problem, and therefore all parameters involved in the relaxation are based on the physical properties of the medium and are given a priori. A local Fourier analysis is applied to study the convergence of the multigrid method and to support the good convergence results obtained. The proposed geometric multigrid algorithm is used to solve several tests in semi-structured triangular grids, in order to show the good behavior of the method and its practical utility