arXiv subjects

Gregor J. Gassner

Publications and source records attributed to Gregor J. Gassner.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

On the Theoretical Foundation of Overset Grid Methods for Hyperbolic Problems: Well-Posedness and Conservation

We use the energy method to study the well-posedness of initial-boundary value problems approximated by overset mesh methods in one and two space dimensions for linear constant-coefficient hyperbolic systems. We show that in one space dimension, for both scalar equations and systems of equations, the problem where one domain partially oversets another is well-posed when characteristic coupling conditions are used. If a system cannot be diagonalized, as is ususally the case in multiple space dimensions, then the energy method does not give proper bounds in terms of initial and boundary data. For those problems, we propose a novel penalty approach. We show, by using a global energy that accounts for the energy in the overlap region of the domains, that under well-defined conditions on the coupling matrices the penalized overset domain problems are energy bounded, conservative, well-posed and have solutions equivalent to the original single domain problem.

math.NA↗

arXiv2021

A Subcell Finite Volume Positivity-Preserving Limiter for DGSEM Discretizations of the Euler Equations

In this paper, we present a positivity-preserving limiter for nodal Discontinuous Galerkin disctretizations of the compressible Euler equations. We use a Legendre-Gauss-Lobatto (LGL) Discontinuous Galerkin Spectral Element Method (DGSEM) and blend it locally with a consistent LGL-subcell Finite Volume (FV) discretization using a hybrid FV/DGSEM scheme that was recently proposed for entropy stable shock capturing. We show that our strategy is able to ensure robust simulations with positive density and pressure when using the standard and the split-form DGSEM. Furthermore, we show the applicability of our FV positivity limiter in extremely under-resolved vortex dominated simulations and in problems with shocks.

math.NA↗

arXiv2020

Stability of Discontinuous Galerkin Spectral Element Schemes for Wave Propagation when the Coefficient Matrices have Jumps

We use the behavior of the $L_{2}$ norm of the solutions of linear hyperbolic equations with discontinuous coefficient matrices as a surrogate to infer stability of discontinuous Galerkin spectral element methods (DGSEM). Although the $L_{2}$ norm is not bounded by the initial data for homogeneous and dissipative boundary conditions for such systems, the $L_{2}$ norm is easier to work with than a norm that discounts growth due to the discontinuities. We show that the DGSEM with an upwind numerical flux that satisfies the Rankine-Hugoniot (or conservation) condition has the same energy bound as the partial differential equation does in the $L_{2}$ norm, plus an added dissipation that depends on how much the approximate solution fails to satisfy the Rankine-Hugoniot jump.

math.NA↗

arXiv2020

A Split-Form, Stable CG/DG-SEM for Wave Propagation Modeled by Linear Hyperbolic Systems

We present a hybrid continuous and discontinuous Galerkin spectral element approximation that leverages the advantages of each approach. The continuous Galerkin approximation is used on interior element faces where the equation properties are continuous. A discontinuous Galerkin approximation is used at physical boundaries and if there is a jump in properties at a face. The approximation uses a split form of the equations and two-point fluxes to ensure stability for unstructured quadrilateral/hexahedral meshes with curved elements. The approximation is also conservative and constant state preserving on such meshes. Spectral accuracy is obtained for all examples, which include wave scattering at a discontinuous medium boundary.

math.NA↗

arXiv2020

A provably entropy stable subcell shock capturing approach for high order split form DG for the compressible Euler Equations

The main result in this paper is a provably entropy stable shock capturing approach for the high order entropy stable DGSEM based on a hybrid blending with a subcell low order variant. Since it is possible to rewrite a high order SBP operator into an equivalent conservative finite volume form, we were able to design a low order scheme directly with the LGL nodes that is compatible to the discrete entropy analysis used for the proof of the entropy stable DGSEM. Furthermore, we present a hybrid low order/high order discretisation where it is possible to seamlessly blend between the two approaches, while still being provably entropy stable. We are able to extend the approach to three spatial dimensions on unstructured curvilinear hexahedral meshes. We validate our theoretical findings and demonstrate convergence order for smooth problems, conservation of the primary quantities and discrete entropy stability for an arbitrary blending on curvilinear grids. In practical simulations, we connect the blending factor to a local troubled element indicator that provides the control of the amount of low order dissipation injected into the high order scheme. We modified an existing shock indicator, which is based on the modal polynomial representation, to our provably stable hybrid scheme. The aim is to reduce the impact of the parameters as good as possible. We describe our indicator in detail and demonstrate its robustness in combination with the hybrid scheme, as it is possible to compute all the different test cases without changing the indicator. The test cases include e.g. the double Mach reflection setup, forward and backward facing steps with shock Mach numbers up to 100. The proposed approach is relatively straight forward to implement in an existing entropy stable DGSEM code as only modifications local to an element are necessary.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2020

Construction of Modern Robust Nodal Discontinuous Galerkin Spectral Element Methods for the Compressible Navier-Stokes Equations

Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods have a long history in computational physics and engineering to approximate solutions of partial differential equations due to their high-order accuracy and geometric flexibility. However, DG is not perfect and there remain some issues. Concerning robustness, DG has undergone an extensive transformation over the past seven years into its modern form that provides statements on solution boundedness for linear and nonlinear problems. This chapter takes a constructive approach to introduce a modern incarnation of the DG spectral element method for the compressible Navier-Stokes equations in a three-dimensional curvilinear context. The groundwork of the numerical scheme comes from classic principles of spectral methods including polynomial approximations and Gauss-type quadratures. We identify aliasing as one underlying cause of the robustness issues for classical DG spectral methods. Removing said aliasing errors requires a particular differentiation matrix and careful discretization of the advective flux terms in the governing equations.

math.NA↗

arXiv2019

Entropy Stable p-Nonconforming Discretizations with the Summation-by-Parts Property for the Compressible Navier-Stokes Equations

The entropy conservative, curvilinear, nonconforming, p-refinement algorithm for hyperbolic conservation laws of Del Rey Fernandez et al. (2019), is extended from the compressible Euler equations to the compressible Navier-Stokes equations. A simple and flexible coupling procedure with planar interpolation operators between adjoining nonconforming elements is used. Curvilinear volume metric terms are numerically approximated via a minimization procedure and satisfy the discrete geometric conservation law conditions. Distinct curvilinear surface metrics are used on the adjoining interfaces to construct the interface coupling terms, thereby localizing the discrete geometric conservation law constraints to each individual element. The resulting scheme is entropy conservative/stable, element-wise conservative, and freestream preserving. Viscous interface dissipation operators are developed that retain the entropy stability of the base scheme. The accuracy and stability properties of the resulting numerical scheme are shown to be comparable to those of the original conforming scheme (achieving ~p+1 convergence) in the context of the viscous shock problem, the Taylor-Green vortex problem at a Reynolds number of Re=1,600, and a subsonic turbulent flow past a sphere at Re = 2,000.

math.NA↗

arXiv2019

Multi-element SIAC filter for shock capturing applied to high-order discontinuous Galerkin spectral element methods

We build a multi-element variant of the smoothness increasing accuracy conserving (SIAC) shock capturing technique proposed for single element spectral methods by Wissink et al. (B.W. Wissink, G.B. Jacobs, J.K. Ryan, W.S. Don, and E.T.A. van der Weide. Shock regularization with smoothness-increasing accuracy-conserving Dirac-delta polynomial kernels. Journal of Scientific Computing, 77:579--596, 2018). In particular, the baseline scheme of our method is the nodal discontinuous Galerkin spectral element method (DGSEM) for approximating the solution of systems of conservation laws. It is well known that high-order methods generate spurious oscillations near discontinuities which can develop in the solution for nonlinear problems, even when the initial data is smooth. We propose a novel multi-element SIAC filtering technique applied to the DGSEM as a shock capturing method. We design the SIAC filtering such that the numerical scheme remains high-order accurate and that the shock capturing is applied adaptively throughout the domain. The shock capturing method is derived for general systems of conservation laws. We apply the novel SIAC filter to the two-dimensional Euler and ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations to several standard test problems with a variety of boundary conditions.

math.NA↗

arXiv2019

Entropy stable numerical approximations for the isothermal and polytropic Euler equations

In this work we analyze the entropic properties of the Euler equations when the system is closed with the assumption of a polytropic gas. In this case, the pressure solely depends upon the density of the fluid and the energy equation is not necessary anymore as the mass conservation and momentum conservation then form a closed system. Further, the total energy acts as a convex mathematical entropy function for the polytropic Euler equations. The polytropic equation of state gives the pressure as a scaled power law of the density in terms of the adiabatic index $γ$. As such, there are important limiting cases contained within the polytropic model like the isothermal Euler equations ($γ=1$) and the shallow water equations ($γ=2$). We first mimic the continuous entropy analysis on the discrete level in a finite volume context to get special numerical flux functions. Next, these numerical fluxes are incorporated into a particular discontinuous Galerkin (DG) spectral element framework where derivatives are approximated with summation-by-parts operators. This guarantees a high-order accurate DG numerical approximation to the polytropic Euler equations that is also consistent to its auxiliary total energy behavior. Numerical examples are provided to verify the theoretical derivations, i.e., the entropic properties of the high order DG scheme.

math.NA↗

arXiv2019

Stability of Wall Boundary Condition Procedures for Discontinuous Galerkin Spectral Element Approximations of the Compressible Euler Equations

We perform a linear and entropy stability analysis for wall boundary condition procedures for discontinuous Galerkin spectral element approximations of the compressible Euler equations. Two types of boundary procedures are examined. The first defines a special wall boundary flux that incorporates the boundary condition. The other is the commonly used reflection condition where an external state is specified that has an equal and opposite normal velocity. The internal and external states are then combined through an approximate Riemann solver to weakly impose the boundary condition. We show that with the exact upwind and Lax-Friedrichs solvers the approximations are energy dissipative, with the amount of dissipation proportional to the square of the normal Mach number. Standard approximate Riemann solvers, namely Lax-Friedrichs, HLL, HLLC are entropy stable. The Roe flux is entropy stable under certain conditions. An entropy conserving flux with an entropy stable dissipation term (EC-ES) is also presented. The analysis gives insight into why these boundary conditions are robust in that they introduce large amounts of energy or entropy dissipation when the boundary condition is not accurately satisfied, e.g. due to an impulsive start or under resolution.

math.NA↗

arXiv2019

On the order reduction of entropy stable DGSEM for the compressible Euler equations

Is the experimental order of convergence lower when using the entropy stable DGSEM-LGL variant? Recently, a debate on the question of the convergence behavior of the entropy stable nodal collocation discontinuous Galerkin spectral element method (DGSEM) with Legendre-Gauss-Lobatto nodes has emerged. Whereas it is well documented that the entropy conservative variant with no additional interface dissipation shows an odd-even behavior when testing its experimental convergence order, the results in the literature are less clear regarding the entropy stable version of the DGSEM-LGL, where explicit Riemann solver type dissipation is added at the element interfaces. We contribute to the ongoing discussion and present numerical experiments for the compressible Euler equations, where we investigate the effect of the choice of the numerical surface flux function. In our experiments, it turns out that the choice of the numerical surface flux has an impact on the convergence order. Penalty type numerical fluxes with high dissipation in all waves, such as the LLF and the HLL flux, appear to affect the convergence order negatively for odd polynomial degrees $N$, in contrast to the entropy conserving variant, where even polynomial degrees $N$ are negatively affected. This behavior is more pronounced in low Mach number settings. In contrast, for numerical surface fluxes with less dissipative behavior in the contact wave such as e.g. Roe's flux, the HLLC flux and the entropy conservative flux augmented with 5-wave matrix dissipation, optimal convergence rate of $N+1$ independent of the Mach number is observed.

math.NA↗

arXiv2018

Entropy Stable Discontinuous Galerkin Schemes on Moving Meshes with Summation-by-Parts Property for Hyperbolic Conservation Laws

This work is focused on the entropy analysis of a semi-discrete nodal discontinuous Galerkin spectral element method (DGSEM) on moving meshes for hyperbolic conservation laws. The DGSEM is constructed with a local tensor-product Lagrange-polynomial basis computed from Legendre-Gauss-Lobatto (LGL) points. Furthermore, the collocation of interpolation and quadrature nodes is used in the spatial discretization. This approach leads to discrete derivative approximations in space that are summation-by-parts (SBP) operators. On a static mesh, the SBP property and suitable two-point flux functions, which satisfy the entropy condition from Tadmor, allow to mimic results from the continuous entropy analysis on the discrete level. In this paper, Tadmor's condition is extended to the moving mesh framework. Based on the moving mesh entropy condition, entropy conservative two-point flux functions for the homogeneous shallow water equations and the compressible Euler equations are constructed. Furthermore, it will be proven that the semi-discrete moving mesh DGSEM is an entropy conservative scheme when a two-point flux function, which satisfies the moving mesh entropy condition, is applied in the split form DG framework. This proof does not require any exactness of quadrature in the spatial integrals of the variational form. Nevertheless, entropy conservation is not sufficient to tame discontinuities in the numerical solution and thus the entropy conservative moving mesh DGSEM is modified by adding numerical dissipation matrices to the entropy conservative fluxes. Then, the method becomes entropy stable such that the discrete mathematical entropy is bounded at any time by its initial and boundary data when the boundary conditions are specified appropriately. The theoretical properties of the moving mesh DGSEM will be validated by numerical experiments for the compressible Euler equations.

math.NA↗

arXiv2018

Entropy Stable Space-Time Discontinuous Galerkin Schemes with Summation-by-Parts Property for Hyperbolic Conservation Laws

This work examines the development of an entropy conservative (for smooth solutions) or entropy stable (for discontinuous solutions) space-time discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method for systems of non-linear hyperbolic conservation laws. The resulting numerical scheme is fully discrete and provides a bound on the mathematical entropy at any time according to its initial condition and boundary conditions. The crux of the method is that discrete derivative approximations in space and time are summation-by-parts (SBP) operators. This allows the discrete method to mimic results from the continuous entropy analysis and ensures that the complete numerical scheme obeys the second law of thermodynamics. Importantly, the novel method described herein does not assume any exactness of quadrature in the variational forms that naturally arise in the context of DG methods. Typically, the development of entropy stable schemes is done on the semi-discrete level ignoring the temporal dependence. In this work we demonstrate that creating an entropy stable DG method in time is similar to the spatial discrete entropy analysis, but there are important (and subtle) differences. Therefore, we highlight the temporal entropy analysis throughout this work. For the compressible Euler equations, the preservation of kinetic energy is of interest besides entropy stability. The construction of kinetic energy preserving (KEP) schemes is, again, typically done on the semi-discrete level similar to the construction of entropy stable schemes. We present a generalization of the KEP condition from Jameson to the space-time framework and provide the temporal components for both entropy stability and kinetic energy preservation. The properties of the space-time DG method derived herein is validated through numerical tests for the compressible Euler equations.

math.NA↗

arXiv2018

An entropy stable nodal discontinuous Galerkin method for the resistive MHD equations. Part I: Theory and Numerical Verification

The first paper of this series presents a discretely entropy stable discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method for the resistive magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations on three-dimensional curvilinear unstructured hexahedral meshes. Compared to other fluid dynamics systems such as the shallow water equations or the compressible Navier-Stokes equations, the resistive MHD equations need special considerations because of the divergence-free constraint on the magnetic field. For instance, it is well known that for the symmetrization of the ideal MHD system as well as the continuous entropy analysis a non-conservative term proportional to the divergence of the magnetic field, typically referred to as the Powell term, must be included. As a consequence, the mimicry of the continuous entropy analysis in the discrete sense demands a suitable DG approximation of the non-conservative terms in addition to the ideal MHD terms. This paper focuses on the resistive MHD equations: Our first contribution is a proof that the resistive terms are symmetric and positive-definite when formulated in entropy space as gradients of the entropy variables. This enables us to show that the entropy inequality holds for the resistive MHD equations. This continuous analysis is the key for our DG discretization and guides the path for the construction of an approximation that discretely mimics the entropy inequality, typically termed entropy stability. Our second contribution is a detailed derivation and analysis of the discretization on three-dimensional curvilinear meshes. The discrete analysis relies on the summation-by-parts property, which is satisfied by the DG spectral element method (DGSEM) with Legendre-Gauss-Lobatto (LGL) nodes. Although the divergence-free constraint is included in the non-conservative terms, the resulting method has no particular treatment of the magnetic field divergence errors...

math.NA↗

arXiv2018

A comparative study on polynomial dealiasing and split form discontinuous Galerkin schemes for under-resolved turbulence computations

This work focuses on the accuracy and stability of high-order nodal discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods for under-resolved turbulence computations. In particular we consider the inviscid Taylor-Green vortex (TGV) flow to analyse the implicit large eddy simulation (iLES) capabilities of DG methods at very high Reynolds numbers. The governing equations are discretised in two ways in order to suppress aliasing errors introduced into the discrete variational forms due to the under-integration of non-linear terms. The first, more straightforward way relies on consistent/over-integration, where quadrature accuracy is improved by using a larger number of integration points, consistent with the degree of the non-linearities. The second strategy, originally applied in the high-order finite difference community, relies on a split (or skew-symmetric) form of the governing equations. Different split forms are available depending on how the variables in the non-linear terms are grouped. The desired split form is then built by averaging conservative and non-conservative forms of the governing equations, although conservativity of the DG scheme is fully preserved. A preliminary analysis based on Burgers' turbulence in one spatial dimension is conducted and shows the potential of split forms in keeping the energy of higher-order polynomial modes close to the expected levels. This indicates that the favourable dealiasing properties observed from split-form approaches in more classical schemes seem to hold for DG. The remainder of the study considers a comprehensive set of (under-resolved) computations of the inviscid TGV flow and compares the accuracy and robustness of consistent/over-integration and split form discretisations based on the local Lax-Friedrichs and Roe-type Riemann solvers...

math.NA↗

arXiv2018

Ideal GLM-MHD: About the entropy consistent nine-wave magnetic field divergence diminishing ideal magnetohydrodynamics equations

The paper presents two contributions in the context of the numerical simulation of magnetized fluid dynamics. First, we show how to extend the ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations with an inbuilt magnetic field divergence cleaning mechanism in such a way that the resulting model is consistent with the second law of thermodynamics. As a byproduct of these derivations, we show that not all of the commonly used divergence cleaning extensions of the ideal MHD equations are thermodynamically consistent. Secondly, we present a numerical scheme obtained by constructing a specific finite volume discretization that is consistent with the discrete thermodynamic entropy. It includes a mechanism to control the discrete divergence error of the magnetic field by construction and is Galilean invariant. We implement the new high-order MHD solver in the adaptive mesh refinement code FLASH where we compare the divergence cleaning efficiency to the constrained transport solver available in FLASH (unsplit staggered mesh scheme).

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2018

The BR1 Scheme is Stable for the Compressible Navier-Stokes Equations

We show how to modify the original Bassi and Rebay scheme (BR1) [F. Bassi and S. Rebay, A High Order Accurate Discontinuous Finite Element Method for the Numerical Solution of the Compressible Navier-Stokes Equations, Journal of Computational Physics, 131:267--279, 1997] to get a provably stable discontinuous Galerkin collocation spectral element method (DGSEM) with Gauss-Lobatto (GL) nodes for the compressible Navier-Stokes equations (NSE) on three dimensional curvilinear meshes. Specifically, we show that the BR1 scheme can be provably stable if the metric identities are discretely satisfied, a two-point average for the metric terms is used for the contravariant fluxes in the volume, an entropy conserving split form is used for the advective volume integrals, the auxiliary gradients for the viscous terms are computed from gradients of entropy variables, and the BR1 scheme is used for the interface fluxes. Our analysis shows that even with three dimensional curvilinear grids, the BR1 fluxes do not add artificial dissipation at the interior element faces. Thus, the BR1 interface fluxes preserve the stability of the discretization of the advection terms and we get either energy stability or entropy-stability for the linear or nonlinear compressible NSE, respectively.

math.NA↗

arXiv2018

An entropy stable discontinuous Galerkin method for the shallow water equations on curvilinear meshes with wet/dry fronts accelerated by GPUs

We extend the entropy stable high order nodal discontinuous Galerkin spectral element approximation for the non-linear two dimensional shallow water equations presented by Wintermeyer et al. [N. Wintermeyer, A. R. Winters, G. J. Gassner, and D. A. Kopriva. An entropy stable nodal discontinuous Galerkin method for the two dimensional shallow water equations on unstructured curvilinear meshes with discontinuous bathymetry. Journal of Computational Physics, 340:200-242, 2017] with a shock capturing technique and a positivity preservation capability to handle dry areas. The scheme preserves the entropy inequality, is well-balanced and works on unstructured, possibly curved, quadrilateral meshes. For the shock capturing, we introduce an artificial viscosity to the equations and prove that the numerical scheme remains entropy stable. We add a positivity preserving limiter to guarantee non-negative water heights as long as the mean water height is non-negative. We prove that non-negative mean water heights are guaranteed under a certain additional time step restriction for the entropy stable numerical interface flux. We implement the method on GPU architectures using the abstract language OCCA, a unified approach to multi-threading languages. We show that the entropy stable scheme is well suited to GPUs as the necessary extra calculations do not negatively impact the runtime up to reasonably high polynomial degrees (around $N=7$). We provide numerical examples that challenge the shock capturing and positivity properties of our scheme to verify our theoretical findings.

math.NA↗