Efficient Solvers for Space-Time Discontinuous Galerkin Spectral Element Methods

In this thesis we study efficient solvers for space-time discontinuous Galerkin spectral element methods (DG-SEM). These discretizations result in fully implicit schemes of variable order in both spatial and temporal directions. The popularity of space-time DG methods has increased in recent years and entropy stable space-time DG-SEM have been constructed for conservation laws, making them interesting for these applications. The size of the nonlinear system resulting from differential equations discretized with space-time DG-SEM is dependent on the order of the method, and the corresponding Jacobian is of block form with dense blocks. Thus, the problem arises to efficiently solve these huge nonlinear systems with regards to CPU time as well as memory consumption. The lack of good solvers for three-dimensional DG applications has been identified as one of the major obstacles before high order methods can be adapted for industrial applications.It has been proven that DG-SEM in time and Lobatto IIIC Runge-Kutta methods are equivalent, in that both methods lead to the same discrete solution. This allows to implement space-time DG-SEM in two ways: Either as a full space-time system or by decoupling the temporal elements and using implicit time-stepping with Lobatto IIIC methods. We compare theoretical properties and discuss practical aspects of the respective implementations.When considering the full space-time system, multigrid can be used as solver. We analyze this solver with the local Fourier analysis, which gives more insight into the efficiency of the space-time multigrid method. The other option is to decouple the temporal elements and use implicit Runge-Kutta time-stepping methods. We suggest to use Jacobian-free Newton-Krylov (JFNK) solvers since they are advantageous memory-wise. An efficient preconditioner for the Krylov sub-solver is needed to improve the convergence speed. However, we want to avoid constructing or storing the Jacobian, otherwise the favorable memory consumption of the JFNK approach would be obsolete. We present a preconditioner based on an auxiliary first order finite volume replacement operator. Based on the replacement operator we construct an agglomeration multigrid preconditioner with efficient smoothers using pseudo time integrators. Then only the Jacobian of the replacement operator needs to be constructed and the DG method is still Jacobian-free. Numerical experiments for hyperbolic test problems as the advection, advection-diffusion and Euler equations in several dimensions demonstrate the potential of the new approach

Implicit time integration for high-order compressible flow solvers

The application of high-order spectral/hp element discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods to unsteady compressible flow simulations has gained increasing popularity. However, the time step is seriously restricted when high-order methods are applied to an explicit solver. To eliminate this restriction, an implicit high-order compressible flow solver is developed using DG methods for spatial discretization, diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta methods for temporal discretization, and the Jacobian-free Newton-Krylov method as its nonlinear solver. To accelerate convergence, a block relaxed Jacobi preconditioner is partially matrix-free implementation with a hybrid calculation of analytical and numerical Jacobian.The problem of too many user-defined parameters within the implicit solver is then studied. A systematic framework of adaptive strategies is designed to relax the difficulty of parameter choices. The adaptive time-stepping strategy is based on the observation that in a fixed mesh simulation, when the total error is dominated by the spatial error, further decreasing of temporal error through decreasing the time step cannot help increase accuracy but only slow down the solver. Based on a similar error analysis, an adaptive Newton tolerance is proposed based on the idea that the iterative error should be smaller than the temporal error to guarantee temporal accuracy. An adaptive strategy to update the preconditioner based on the Krylov solver’s convergence state is also discussed. Finally, an adaptive implicit solver is developed that eliminates the need for repeated tests of tunning parameters, whose accuracy and efficiency are verified in various steady/unsteady simulations. An improved shock-capturing strategy is also proposed when the implicit solver is applied to high-speed simulations. Through comparisons among the forms of three popular artificial viscosities, we identify the importance of the density term and add density-related terms on the original bulk-stress based artificial viscosity. To stabilize the simulations involving strong shear layers, we design an extra shearstress based artificial viscosity. The new shock-capturing strategy helps dissipate oscillations at shocks but has negligible dissipation in smooth regions.Open Acces

Computational Aerodynamics on unstructed meshes

New 2D and 3D unstructured-grid based flow solvers have been developed for simulating steady compressible flows for aerodynamic applications. The codes employ the full compressible Euler/Navier-Stokes equations. The Spalart-Al Imaras one equation turbulence model is used to model turbulence effects of flows. The spatial discretisation has been obtained using a cell-centred finite volume scheme on unstructured-grids, consisting of triangles in 2D and of tetrahedral and prismatic elements in 3D. The temporal discretisation has been obtained with an explicit multistage Runge-Kutta scheme. An "inflation" mesh generation technique is introduced to effectively reduce the difficulty in generating highly stretched 2D/3D viscous grids in regions near solid surfaces. The explicit flow method is accelerated by the use of a multigrid method with consideration of the high grid aspect ratio in viscous flow simulations. A solution mesh adaptation technique is incorporated to improve the overall accuracy of the 2D inviscid and viscous flow solutions. The 3D flow solvers are parallelised in a MIMD fashion aimed at a PC cluster system to reduce the computing time for aerodynamic applications. The numerical methods are first applied to several 2D inviscid flow cases, including subsonic flow in a bump channel, transonic flow around a NACA0012 airfoil and transonic flow around the RAE 2822 airfoil to validate the numerical algorithms. The rest of the 2D case studies concentrate on viscous flow simulations including laminar/turbulent flow over a flat plate, transonic turbulent flow over the RAE 2822 airfoil, and low speed turbulent flows in a turbine cascade with massive separations. The results are compared to experimental data to assess the accuracy of the method. The over resolved problem with mesh adaptation on viscous flow simulations is addressed with a two phase mesh reconstruction procedure. The solution convergence rate with the aspect ratio adaptive multigrid method and the direct connectivity based multigrid is assessed in several viscous turbulent flow simulations. Several 3D test cases are presented to validate the numerical algorithms for solving Euler/Navier-Stokes equations. Inviscid flow around the M6 wing airfoil is simulated on the tetrahedron based 3D flow solver with an upwind scheme and spatial second order finite volume method. The efficiency of the multigrid for inviscid flow simulations is examined. The efficiency of the parallelised 3D flow solver and the PC cluster system is assessed with simulations of the same case with different partitioning schemes. The present parallelised 3D flow solvers on the PC cluster system show satisfactory parallel computing performance. Turbulent flows over a flat plate are simulated with the tetrahedron based and prismatic based flow solver to validate the viscous term treatment. Next, simulation of turbulent flow over the M6 wing is carried out with the parallelised 3D flow solvers to demonstrate the overall accuracy of the algorithms and the efficiency of the multigrid method. The results show very good agreement with experimental data. A highly stretched and well-formed computational grid near the solid wall and wake regions is generated with the "inflation" method. The aspect ratio adaptive multigrid displayed a good acceleration rate. Finally, low speed flow around the NREL Phase 11 Wind turbine is simulated and the results are compared to the experimental data

[Research activities in applied mathematics, fluid mechanics, and computer science]

This report summarizes research conducted at the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering in applied mathematics, fluid mechanics, and computer science during the period April 1, 1995 through September 30, 1995

[Activity of Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering]

This report summarizes research conducted at the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering in applied mathematics, fluid mechanics, and computer science

Multigrid Preconditioners for the Discontinuous Galerkin Spectral Element Method : Construction and Analysis

Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods offer a great potential for simulations of turbulent and wall bounded flows with complex geometries since these high-order schemes offer a great potential in handling eddies. Recently, space-time DG methods have become more popular. These discretizations result in implicit schemes of high order in both spatial and temporal directions. In particular, we consider a specific DG variant, the DG Spectral Element Method (DG-SEM), which is suitable to construct entropy stable solvers for conservation laws. Since the size of the corresponding nonlinear systems is dependent on the order of the method in all dimensions, the problem arises to efficiently solve these huge nonlinear systems with regards to CPU time as well as memory consumption.Currently, there is a lack of good solvers for three-dimensional DG applications, which is one of the major obstacles why these high order methods are not used in e.g. industry. We suggest to use Jacobian-free Newton- Krylov (JFNK) solvers, which are advantageous in memory minimization. In order to improve the convergence speed of these solvers, an efficient preconditioner needs to be constructed for the Krylov sub-solver. However, if the preconditioner requires the storage of the DG system Jacobian, the favorable memory consumption of the JFNK approach is obsolete.We therefore present a multigrid based preconditioner for the Krylov sub-method which retains the low mem- ory consumption, i.e. a Jacobian-free preconditioner. To achieve this, we make use of an auxiliary first order finite volume replacement operator. With this idea, the original DG mesh is refined but can still be implemented algebraically. As smoother, we consider the pseudo time iteration W3 with a symmetric Gauss-Seidel type approx- imation of the Jacobian. Numerical results are presented demonstrating the potential of the new approach.In order to analyze multigrid preconditioners, a common tool is the Local Fourier Analysis (LFA). For a space- time model problem we present this analysis and its benefits for calculating smoothing and two-grid convergence factors, which give more insight into the efficiency of the multigrid method

Hybrid multigrid methods for high-order discontinuous Galerkin discretizations

The present work develops hybrid multigrid methods for high-order discontinuous Galerkin discretizations of elliptic problems. Fast matrix-free operator evaluation on tensor product elements is used to devise a computationally efficient PDE solver. The multigrid hierarchy exploits all possibilities of geometric, polynomial, and algebraic coarsening, targeting engineering applications on complex geometries. Additionally, a transfer from discontinuous to continuous function spaces is performed within the multigrid hierarchy. This does not only further reduce the problem size of the coarse-grid problem, but also leads to a discretization most suitable for state-of-the-art algebraic multigrid methods applied as coarse-grid solver. The relevant design choices regarding the selection of optimal multigrid coarsening strategies among the various possibilities are discussed with the metric of computational costs as the driving force for algorithmic selections. We find that a transfer to a continuous function space at highest polynomial degree (or on the finest mesh), followed by polynomial and geometric coarsening, shows the best overall performance. The success of this particular multigrid strategy is due to a significant reduction in iteration counts as compared to a transfer from discontinuous to continuous function spaces at lowest polynomial degree (or on the coarsest mesh). The coarsening strategy with transfer to a continuous function space on the finest level leads to a multigrid algorithm that is robust with respect to the penalty parameter of the SIPG method. Detailed numerical investigations are conducted for a series of examples ranging from academic test cases to more complex, practically relevant geometries. Performance comparisons to state-of-the-art methods from the literature demonstrate the versatility and computational efficiency of the proposed multigrid algorithms

Simulation of Multispecies Gas Flows using the Discontinuous Galerkin Method

Truncation errors and computational cost are obstacles that still hinder large-scale applications of the Computational Fluid Dynamics method. The discontinuous Galerkin method is one of the high-order schemes utilized extensively in recent years, which is locally conservative, stable, and high-order accurate. Besides that, it can handle complex geometries and irregular meshes with hanging nodes. In this document, the nondimensional compressible Euler equations and Reynolds- Averaged Navier-Stokes equations are discretized by discontinuous Galerkin methods with a two-equations turbulence model on both structured and unstructured meshes. The traditional equation of state for an ideal gas model is substituted by a multispecies thermodynamics model in order to complete the governing equations. An approximate Riemann solver is used for computing the convective flux, and the diffusive flux is approximated with some internal penalty based schemes. The temporal discretization of the partial differential equations is either performed explicitly with the aid of Rung-Kutta methods or with semi-implicit methods. Inspired by the artificial viscosity diffusion based limiter for shock-capturing method, which has been extensively studied, a novel and robust technique based on the introduction of mass diffusion to the species governing equations to guarantee that the species mass fractions remain positive has been thoroughly investigated. This contact-surface-capturing method is conservative and a high order of accuracy can be maintained for the discontinuous Galerkin method. For each time step of the algorithm, any trouble cell is first caught by the contact-surface discontinuity detector. Then some amount of mass diffusions are added to the governing equations to change the gas mixtures and arrive at an equilibrium point satisfying some conditions. The species properties are reasonable without any oscillations. Computations are performed for many steady and unsteady flow problems. For general non-mixing fluid flows, the classical air-helium shock bubble interaction problem is the central test case for the high-order discontinuous Galerkin method with a mass diffusion based limiter chosen. The computed results are compared with experimental, exact, and empirical data to validate the fluid dynamic solver