A posteriori error estimation and anisotropy detection with the dual‐weighted residual method

In this work we develop a new framework for a posteriori error estimation and detection of anisotropies based on the dual‐weighted residual (DWR) method by Becker and Rannacher. The common approach for anisotropic mesh adaptation is to analyze the Hessian of the solution. Eigenvalues and eigenvectors indicate dominant directions and optimal stretching of elements. However, this approach is firmly linked to energy norm error estimation. Here, we extend the DWR method to anisotropic finite elements allowing for the direct estimation of directional errors with regard to given output functionals. The resulting meshes reflect anisotropic properties of both the solution and the functional. For the optimal measurement of the directional errors, the coarse meshes need some alignment with the dominant anisotropies. Numerical examples will demonstrate the efficiency of this method on various three‐dimensional problems including a well‐known Navier–Stokes benchmark. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nonlinear corrector for Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations

The scope of this paper is to present a nonlinear error estimation and correction for Navier-Stokes and Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations. This nonlinear corrector enables better solution or functional output predictions at fixed mesh complexity and can be considered in a mesh adaptation process. After solving the problem at hand, a corrected solution is obtained by solving again the problem with an added source term. This source term is deduced from the evaluation of the residual of the numerical solution interpolated on the h/2 mesh. To avoid the generation of the h/2 mesh (which is prohibitive for realistic applications), the residual at each vertex is computed by local refinement only in the neighborhood of the considered vertex. One of the main feature of this approach is that it automatically takes into account all the properties of the considered numerical method. The numerical examples point out that it successfully improves solution predictions and yields a sharp estimate of the numerical error. Moreover, we demonstrate the superiority of the nonlinear corrector with respect to linear corrector that can be found in the literature.     

Collocated discrete least‐squares (CDLS) meshless method: Error estimate and adaptive refinement

Meshless methods are new approaches for solving partial differential equations. The main characteristic of all these methods is that they do not require the traditional mesh to construct a numerical formulation. They require node generation instead of mesh generation. In other words, there is no pre‐specified connectivity or relationships among the nodes. This characteristic make these methods powerful. For example, an adaptive process which requires high computational effort in mesh‐dependent methods can be very economically solved with meshless methods. In this paper, a posteriori error estimate and adaptive refinement strategy is developed in conjunction with the collocated discrete least‐squares (CDLS) meshless method. For this, an error estimate is first developed for a CDLS meshless method. The proposed error estimator is shown to be naturally related to the least‐squares functional, providing a suitable posterior measure of the error in the solution. A mesh moving strategy is then used to displace the nodal points such that the errors are evenly distributed in the solution domain. Efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed error estimator and adaptive refinement process are tested against two hyperbolic benchmark problems, one with shocked and the other with low gradient smooth solutions. These experiments show that the proposed adaptive process is capable of producing stable and accurate results for the difficult problems considered. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Three-dimensional adaptive finite element computations and applications to non-Newtonian fluids

An adaptive strategy for the finite element solution of three-dimensional viscous flow problems is defined and implemented. The solution strategy is based on an advancing front mesh generator making use of binary data structures for fast geometrical data handling. The error is estimated a posteriori with a residual-type bound. The error estimate is shown to exhibit proper convergence for tetrahedral elements. Its combination with the mesh generator and an interpolation scheme for unstructured meshes is shown to generate adaptive meshes and to reduce the solution cost for a given error level, as illustrated by the isothermal flow of a shear-thinning fluid.     

Efficient computation of mean drag for the subcritical flow past a circular cylinder using general Galerkin G2

General Galerkin (G2) is a new computational method for turbulent flow, where a stabilized Galerkin finite element method is used to compute approximate weak solutions to the Navier–Stokes equations directly, without any filtering of the equations as in a standard approach to turbulence simulation, such as large eddy simulation, and thus no Reynolds stresses are introduced, which need modelling. In this paper, G2 is used to compute the drag coefficient c_D for the flow past a circular cylinder at Reynolds number Re=3900, for which the flow is turbulent. It is found that it is possible to approximate c_D to an accuracy of a few percent, corresponding to the accuracy in experimental results for this problem, using less than 10⁵ mesh points, which makes the simulations possible using a standard PC. The mesh is adaptively refined until a stopping criterion is reached with respect to the error in a chosen output of interest, which in this paper is c_D. Both the stopping criterion and the mesh‐refinement strategy are based on a posteriori error estimates, in the form of a space–time integral of residuals times derivatives of the solution of a dual problem, linearized at the approximate solution, and with data coupling to the output of interest. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive finite element method for an optimal control problem of Stokes flow with L2‐norm state constraint

An adaptive finite element approximation for an optimal control problem of the Stokes flow with an L²‐norm state constraint is proposed. To produce good adaptive meshes, the a posteriori error estimates are discussed. The equivalent residual‐type a posteriori error estimators of the H ¹‐error of state and L²‐error of control are given, which are suitable to carry out the adaptive multi‐mesh finite element approximation. Some numerical experiments are performed to illustrate the efficiency of the a posteriori estimators. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mesh adaptation using C1 interpolation of the solution in an unstructured finite volume solver

The goal of this paper is to show the effectiveness of a newly developed estimate of the truncation error calculated based on C¹ interpolation of the solution weighted by the adjoint solution as the adaptation indicator for an unstructured finite volume solver. We will show that adjoint‐based mesh adaptation based on the corrected functional using the new developed truncation error estimate is capable of adapting the mesh to improve the accuracy of the functional and the convergence rate. Both discrete and continuous adjoint solutions are used for adaptation. Results are significantly better with new truncation error estimate than with previously used estimates.     

Versatile anisotropic mesh adaptation methodology applied to pure quantity of interest error estimator. Steady,laminar incompressible flow

We introduce a new flexible mesh adaptation approach to efficiently compute a quantity of interest by the finite element method. Efficiently, we mean that the method provides an evaluation of that quantity up to a predetermined accuracy at a lower computational cost than other classical methods. The central pillar of the method is our scalar error estimator based on sensitivities of the quantity of interest to the residuals. These sensitivities result from the computation of a continuous adjoint problem. The mesh adaptation strategy can drive anisotropic mesh adaptation from a general scalar error contribution of each element. The full potential of our error estimator is then reached. The proposed method is validated by evaluating the lift, the drag, and the hydraulic losses on a 2D benchmark case: the flow around a cylinder at a Reynolds number of 20.     

Adaptive mesh refinement for high‐resolution finite element schemes

New a posteriori error indicators based on edgewise slope‐limiting are presented. The L₂‐norm is employed to measure the error of the solution gradient in both global and element sense. A second‐order Newton–Cotes formula is utilized in order to decompose the local gradient error from a ??₁ finite element solution into a sum of edge contributions. The slope values at edge midpoints are interpolated from the two adjacent vertices. Traditional techniques to recover (superconvergent) nodal gradient values from consistent finite element slopes are reviewed. The deficiencies of standard smoothing procedures—L₂‐projection and the Zienkiewicz–Zhu patch recovery—as applied to nonsmooth solutions are illustrated for simple academic configurations. The recovered gradient values are corrected by applying a slope limiter edge‐by‐edge so as to satisfy geometric constraints. The direct computation of slopes at edge midpoints by means of limited averaging of adjacent gradient values is proposed as an inexpensive alternative. Numerical tests for various solution profiles in one and two space dimensions are presented to demonstrate the potential of this postprocessing procedure as an error indicator. Finally, it is used to perform adaptive mesh refinement for compressible inviscid flow simulations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mesh adaptivity for the transport equation led by variational multiscale error estimators

Recently, we developed an explicit a posteriori error estimator especially suited for fluid dynamics problems solved with a stabilized method. The technology is based upon the theory that inspired stabilized methods, namely, the variational multiscale theory. The salient features of the formulation are that it can be readily implemented in existing codes, it is a very economical procedure, and it yields very accurate local error estimates uniformly from the diffusive to the advective regime. In this work, the variational multiscale error estimator is applied to develop adaptive strategies for the advection–diffusion‐reaction equation. The performance of L₁ and L₂ local error norms combined with three strategies to adapt the mesh is investigated. Emphasis is placed on flows with sharp boundary and interior layers but also attention is given to diffusion‐dominated flows. Computational results show that the method generates meshes with a smooth transition of the element size, which capture all the flow features. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anisotropic mesh adaptation: towards user‐independent,mesh‐independent and solver‐independent CFD. Part I: general principles

The present paper is the lead article in a three‐part series on anisotropic mesh adaptation and its applications to structured and unstructured meshes. A flexible approach is proposed and tested on two‐dimensional, inviscid and viscous, finite volume and finite element flow solvers, over a wide range of speeds. The directional properties of an interpolation‐based error estimate, extracted from the Hessian of the solution, are used to control the size and orientation of mesh edges. The approach is encapsulated into an edge‐based anisotropic mesh optimization methodology (MOM), which uses a judicious sequence of four local operations: refinement, coarsening, edge swapping and point movement, to equi‐distribute the error estimate along all edges, without any recourse to remeshing. The mesh adaptation convergence of the MOM loop is carefully studied for a wide variety of test cases. The mesh optimization generic coupling of MOM with finite volume and finite element flow solvers is shown to yield the same final mesh no matter what the starting point is. It is also shown that on such optimized meshes, the need for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) stabilization artifices, such as upwinding or artificial viscosity, are drastically reduced, if not altogether eliminated, in most well‐posed formulations. These two conclusions can be considered significant steps towards mesh‐independent and solver‐independent CFD. The structure of the three‐part series is thus, 1, general principles; 2, methodology and applications to structured and unstructured grids; 3, applications to three‐dimensional flows. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A posteriori error of a discontinuous Galerkin scheme for compressible miscible displacement problems with molecular diffusion and dispersion

A kind of compressible miscible displacement problems including molecular diffusion and dispersion in porous media is studied. A symmetric interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin method is applied to the coupled system of flow and transport. Explicit a posteriori error estimates are obtained based on the duality argument, approximation properties and residual notations. The resulting error bound is shown to be reliable and worthwhile for guiding dynamic mesh adaptivity. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin p‐adaptivity for wave propagation problems

A p‐adaptive hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin method for the solution of wave problems is presented in a challenging engineering problem. Moreover, its performance is compared with a high‐order continuous Galerkin. The hybridization technique allows to reduce the coupled degrees of freedom to only those on the mesh element boundaries, whereas the particular choice of the numerical fluxes opens the path to a superconvergent postprocessed solution. This superconvergent postprocessed solution is used to construct a simple and inexpensive error estimator. The error estimator is employed to obtain solutions with the prescribed accuracy in the area (or areas) of interest and also drives a proposed iterative mesh adaptation procedure. The proposed method is applied to a nonhomogeneous scattering problem in an unbounded domain. This is a challenging problem because, on the one hand, for high frequencies, numerical difficulties are an important issue because of the loss of the ellipticity and the oscillatory behavior of the solution. And on the other hand, it is applied to real harbor agitation problems. That is, the mild slope equation in frequency domain (Helmholtz equation with nonconstant coefficients) is solved on real geometries with the corresponding perfectly matched layer to damp the diffracted waves. The performance of the method is studied on two practical examples. The adaptive hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin method exhibits better efficiency compared with a high‐order continuous Galerkin method using static condensation of the interior nodes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An hp‐adaptive unstructured finite volume solver for compressible flows

The idea of hp‐adaptation, which has originally been developed for compact schemes (such as finite element methods), suggests an adaptation scheme using a mixture of mesh refinement and order enrichment based on the smoothness of the solution to obtain an accurate solution efficiently. In this paper, we develop an hp‐adaptation framework for unstructured finite volume methods using residual‐based and adjoint‐based error indicators. For the residual‐based error indicator, we use a higher‐order discrete operator to estimate the truncation error, whereas this estimate is weighted by the solution of the discrete adjoint problem for an output of interest to form the adaptation indicator for adjoint‐based adaptations. We perform our adaptation by local subdivision of cells with nonconforming interfaces allowed and local reconstruction of higher‐order polynomials for solution approximations. We present our results for two‐dimensional compressible flow problems including subsonic inviscid, transonic inviscid, and subsonic laminar flow around the NACA 0012 airfoil and also turbulent flow over a flat plate. Our numerical results suggest the efficiency and accuracy advantages of adjoint‐based hp‐adaptations over uniform refinement and also over residual‐based adaptation for flows with and without singularities.     

An optimized Schwarz method with two‐sided Robin transmission conditions for the Helmholtz equation

Optimized Schwarz methods are working like classical Schwarz methods, but they are exchanging physically more valuable information between subdomains and hence have better convergence behaviour. The new transmission conditions include also derivative information, not just function values, and optimized Schwarz methods can be used without overlap. In this paper, we present a new optimized Schwarz method without overlap in the 2d case, which uses a different Robin condition for neighbouring subdomains at their common interface, and which we call two‐sided Robin condition. We optimize the parameters in the Robin conditions and show that for a fixed frequency an asymptotic convergence factor of 1 – O(h^1/4) in the mesh parameter h can be achieved. If the frequency is related to the mesh parameter h, h = O(1/ω^γ) for γ?1, then the optimized asymptotic convergence factor is 1 – O(ω^(1–2γ)/8). We illustrate our analysis with 2d numerical experiments. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An h-adaptive modified element-free Galerkin method

In this work an h-adaptive Modified Element-Free Galerkin (MEFG) method is investigated. The proposed error estimator is based on a recovery by equilibrium of nodal patches where a recovered stress field is obtained by a moving least square approximation. The procedure generates a smooth recovered stress field that is not only more accurate then the approximate solution but also free of spurious oscillations, normally seen in EFG methods at regions with high gradient stresses or discontinuities.The MEFG method combines conventional EFG with extended partition of unity finite element (EPUFE) methods in order to create global shape functions that allow a direct imposition of the essential boundary conditions.The re-meshing of the integration mesh is based on the homogeneous error distribution criterion and upon a given prescribed admissible error. Some examples are presented, considering a plane stress assumption, which shows the performance of the proposed methodology.     

Two-level stabilized finite element method for Stokes eigenvalue problem

A two-level stabilized finite element method for the Stokes eigenvalue problem based on the local Gauss integration is considered.This method involves solving a Stokes eigenvalue problem on a coarse mesh with mesh size H and a Stokes problem on a fine mesh with mesh size h = O(H 2),which can still maintain the asymptotically optimal accuracy.It provides an approximate solution with the convergence rate of the same order as the usual stabilized finite element solution,which involves solving a Stokes eigenvalue problem on a fine mesh with mesh size h.Hence,the two-level stabilized finite element method can save a large amount of computational time.Moreover,numerical tests confirm the theoretical results of the present method.     

An estimation of the sensitivity of numerical error norm using adjoint model

A posteriori estimation of the numerical error sensitivity to the local truncation error is addressed using adjoint model endowed with the information on the error field. The numerical error is estimated from the solution of the linear tangent model (LTM) or from a Richardson extrapolation. The local truncation error used in the LTM is obtained by the action of a high‐order finite‐difference stencil on the field computed by the main (low‐order accuracy) algorithm. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A least square extrapolation method for the a posteriori error estimate of the incompressible Navier Stokes problem

A posteriori error estimators are fundamental tools for providing confidence in the numerical computation of PDEs. To date, the main theories of a posteriori estimators have been developed largely in the finite element framework, for either linear elliptic operators or non‐linear PDEs in the absence of disparate length scales. On the other hand, there is a strong interest in using grid refinement combined with Richardson extrapolation to produce CFD solutions with improved accuracy and, therefore, a posteriori error estimates. But in practice, the effective order of a numerical method often depends on space location and is not uniform, rendering the Richardson extrapolation method unreliable. We have recently introduced (Garbey, 13th International Conference on Domain Decomposition, Barcelona, 2002; 379–386; Garbey and Shyy, J. Comput. Phys. 2003; 186 :1–23) a new method which estimates the order of convergence of a computation as the solution of a least square minimization problem on the residual. This method, called least square extrapolation, introduces a framework facilitating multi‐level extrapolation, improves accuracy and provides a posteriori error estimate. This method can accommodate different grid arrangements. The goal of this paper is to investigate the power and limits of this method via incompressible Navier Stokes flow computations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anisotropic adaptive stabilized finite element solver for RANS models

Aerodynamic characteristics of various geometries are predicted using a finite element formulation coupled with several numerical techniques to ensure stability and accuracy of the method. First, an edge‐based error estimator and anisotropic mesh adaptation are used to detect automatically all flow features under the constraint of a fixed number of elements, thus controlling the computational cost. A variational multiscale‐stabilized finite element method is used to solve the incompressible Navier‐Stokes equations. Finally, the Spalart‐Allmaras turbulence model is solved using the streamline upwind Petrov‐Galerkin method. This paper is meant to show that the combination of anisotropic unsteady mesh adaptation with stabilized finite element methods provides an adequate framework for solving turbulent flows at high Reynolds numbers. The proposed method was validated on several test cases by confrontation with literature of both numerical and experimental results, in terms of accuracy on the prediction of the drag and lift coefficients as well as their evolution in time for unsteady cases.