1,104 research outputs found
Robust Preconditioners for Incompressible MHD Models
In this paper, we develop two classes of robust preconditioners for the
structure-preserving discretization of the incompressible magnetohydrodynamics
(MHD) system. By studying the well-posedness of the discrete system, we design
block preconditioners for them and carry out rigorous analysis on their
performance. We prove that such preconditioners are robust with respect to most
physical and discretization parameters. In our proof, we improve the existing
estimates of the block triangular preconditioners for saddle point problems by
removing the scaling parameters, which are usually difficult to choose in
practice. This new technique is not only applicable to the MHD system, but also
to other problems. Moreover, we prove that Krylov iterative methods with our
preconditioners preserve the divergence-free condition exactly, which
complements the structure-preserving discretization. Another feature is that we
can directly generalize this technique to other discretizations of the MHD
system. We also present preliminary numerical results to support the
theoretical results and demonstrate the robustness of the proposed
preconditioners
Discretisations and Preconditioners for Magnetohydrodynamics Models
The magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations are generally known to be difficult
to solve numerically, due to their highly nonlinear structure and the strong
coupling between the electromagnetic and hydrodynamic variables, especially for
high Reynolds and coupling numbers.
In the first part of this work, we present a scalable augmented Lagrangian
preconditioner for a finite element discretisation of the
- formulation of the incompressible viscoresistive MHD
equations. For stationary problems, our solver achieves robust performance with
respect to the Reynolds and coupling numbers in two dimensions and good results
in three dimensions. Our approach relies on specialised parameter-robust
multigrid methods for the hydrodynamic and electromagnetic blocks. The scheme
ensures exactly divergence-free approximations of both the velocity and the
magnetic field up to solver tolerances.
In the second part, we focus on incompressible, resistive Hall MHD models and
derive structure-preserving finite element methods for these equations. We
present a variational formulation of Hall MHD that enforces the magnetic
Gauss's law precisely (up to solver tolerances) and prove the well-posedness of
a Picard linearisation. For the transient problem, we present time
discretisations that preserve the energy and magnetic and hybrid helicity
precisely in the ideal limit for two types of boundary conditions.
In the third part, we investigate anisothermal MHD models. We start by
performing a bifurcation analysis for a magnetic Rayleigh--B\'enard problem at
a high coupling number by choosing the Rayleigh number in the range
between 0 and as the bifurcation parameter. We study the effect of
the coupling number on the bifurcation diagram and outline how we create
initial guesses to obtain complex solution patterns and disconnected branches
for high coupling numbers.Comment: Doctoral thesis, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford. 174
page
Variational Integrators for Reduced Magnetohydrodynamics
Reduced magnetohydrodynamics is a simplified set of magnetohydrodynamics
equations with applications to both fusion and astrophysical plasmas,
possessing a noncanonical Hamiltonian structure and consequently a number of
conserved functionals. We propose a new discretisation strategy for these
equations based on a discrete variational principle applied to a formal
Lagrangian. The resulting integrator preserves important quantities like the
total energy, magnetic helicity and cross helicity exactly (up to machine
precision). As the integrator is free of numerical resistivity, spurious
reconnection along current sheets is absent in the ideal case. If effects of
electron inertia are added, reconnection of magnetic field lines is allowed,
although the resulting model still possesses a noncanonical Hamiltonian
structure. After reviewing the conservation laws of the model equations, the
adopted variational principle with the related conservation laws are described
both at the continuous and discrete level. We verify the favourable properties
of the variational integrator in particular with respect to the preservation of
the invariants of the models under consideration and compare with results from
the literature and those of a pseudo-spectral code.Comment: 35 page
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