A study of troubled-cell indicators applied to finite volume methods using a novel monotonicity parameter

Abstract

We adapt a troubled-cell indicator developed for discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods to the finite volume method (FVM) framework for solving hyperbolic conservation laws. This indicator depends solely on the cell-average data of the target cell and its immediate neighbours. Once the troubled-cells are identified, we apply the limiter only in these cells instead of applying in all computational cells. We introduce a novel technique to quantify the quality of the solution in the neighbourhood of the shock by defining a monotonicity parameter $\mu$. Numerical results from various two-dimensional simulations on the hyperbolic systems of Euler equations using a finite volume solver employing MUSCL reconstruction validate the performance of the troubled-cell indicator and the approach of limiting only in the troubled-cells. These results show that limiting only in the troubled-cells is preferable to limiting everywhere as it improves convergence without compromising on the solution accuracy.