Mixed Mimetic Spectral Element Method for Stokes Flow: A Pointwise Divergence-Free Solution

In this paper we apply the recently developed mimetic discretization method to the mixed formulation of the Stokes problem in terms of vorticity, velocity and pressure. The mimetic discretization presented in this paper and in [50] is a higher-order method for curvilinear quadrilaterals and hexahedrals. Fundamental is the underlying structure of oriented geometric objects, the relation between these objects through the boundary operator and how this defines the exterior derivative, representing the grad, curl and div, through the generalized Stokes theorem. The mimetic method presented here uses the language of differential $k$-forms with $k$-cochains as their discrete counterpart, and the relations between them in terms of the mimetic operators: reduction, reconstruction and projection. The reconstruction consists of the recently developed mimetic spectral interpolation functions. The most important result of the mimetic framework is the commutation between differentiation at the continuous level with that on the finite dimensional and discrete level. As a result operators like gradient, curl and divergence are discretized exactly. For Stokes flow, this implies a pointwise divergence-free solution. This is confirmed using a set of test cases on both Cartesian and curvilinear meshes. It will be shown that the method converges optimally for all admissible boundary conditions

A Mixed Mimetic Spectral Element Model of the Rotating Shallow Water Equations on the Cubed Sphere

In a previous article [J. Comp. Phys. $\mathbf{357}$ (2018) 282-304], the mixed mimetic spectral element method was used to solve the rotating shallow water equations in an idealized geometry. Here the method is extended to a smoothly varying, non-affine, cubed sphere geometry. The differential operators are encoded topologically via incidence matrices due to the use of spectral element edge functions to construct tensor product solution spaces in $H(\mathrm{rot})$, $H(\mathrm{div})$ and $L_2$. These incidence matrices commute with respect to the metric terms in order to ensure that the mimetic properties are preserved independent of the geometry. This ensures conservation of mass, vorticity and energy for the rotating shallow water equations using inexact quadrature on the cubed sphere. The spectral convergence of errors are similarly preserved on the cubed sphere, with the generalized Piola transformation used to construct the metric terms for the physical field quantities

Computational Engineering

This Workshop treated a variety of finite element methods and applications in computational engineering and expanded their mathematical foundation in engineering analysis. Among the 53 participants were mathematicians and engineers with focus on mixed and nonstandard finite element schemes and their applications

Compatible finite element methods for numerical weather prediction

This article takes the form of a tutorial on the use of a particular class of mixed finite element methods, which can be thought of as the finite element extension of the C-grid staggered finite difference method. The class is often referred to as compatible finite elements, mimetic finite elements, discrete differential forms or finite element exterior calculus. We provide an elementary introduction in the case of the one-dimensional wave equation, before summarising recent results in applications to the rotating shallow water equations on the sphere, before taking an outlook towards applications in three-dimensional compressible dynamical cores.Comment: To appear in ECMWF Seminar proceedings 201

Curl Constraint-Preserving Reconstruction and the Guidance it Gives for Mimetic Scheme Design

Several important PDE systems, like magnetohydrodynamics and computational electrodynamics, are known to support involutions where the divergence of a vector field evolves in divergence-free or divergence constraint-preserving fashion. Recently, new classes of PDE systems have emerged for hyperelasticity, compressible multiphase flows, so-called first-order reductions of the Einstein field equations, or a novel first-order hyperbolic reformulation of Schrödinger’s equation, to name a few, where the involution in the PDE supports curl-free or curl constraint-preserving evolution of a vector field. We study the problem of curl constraint-preserving reconstruction as it pertains to the design of mimetic finite volume (FV) WENO-like schemes for PDEs that support a curl-preserving involution. (Some insights into discontinuous Galerkin (DG) schemes are also drawn, though that is not the prime focus of this paper.) This is done for two- and three-dimensional structured mesh problems where we deliver closed form expressions for the reconstruction. The importance of multidimensional Riemann solvers in facilitating the design of such schemes is also documented. In two dimensions, a von Neumann analysis of structure-preserving WENO-like schemes that mimetically satisfy the curl constraints, is also presented. It shows the tremendous value of higher order WENO-like schemes in minimizing dissipation and dispersion for this class of problems. Numerical results are also presented to show that the edge-centered curl-preserving (ECCP) schemes meet their design accuracy. This paper is the first paper that invents non-linearly hybridized curl-preserving reconstruction and integrates it with higher order Godunov philosophy. By its very design, this paper is, therefore, intended to be forward-looking and to set the stage for future work on curl involution-constrained PDEs

A Two-Level Method for Mimetic Finite Difference Discretizations of Elliptic Problems

We propose and analyze a two-level method for mimetic finite difference approximations of second order elliptic boundary value problems. We prove that the two-level algorithm is uniformly convergent, i.e., the number of iterations needed to achieve convergence is uniformly bounded independently of the characteristic size of the underling partition. We also show that the resulting scheme provides a uniform preconditioner with respect to the number of degrees of freedom. Numerical results that validate the theory are also presented