The Lagrange–Galerkin method for the two‐dimensional shallow water equations on adaptive grids

The weak Lagrange–Galerkin finite element method for the two‐dimensional shallow water equations on adaptive unstructured grids is presented. The equations are written in conservation form and the domains are discretized using triangular elements. Lagrangian methods integrate the governing equations along the characteristic curves, thus being well suited for resolving the non‐linearities introduced by the advection operator of the fluid dynamics equations. An additional fortuitous consequence of using Lagrangian methods is that the resulting spatial operator is self‐adjoint, thereby justifying the use of a Galerkin formulation; this formulation has been proven to be optimal for such differential operators. The weak Lagrange–Galerkin method automatically takes into account the dilation of the control volume, thereby resulting in a conservative scheme. The use of linear triangular elements permits the construction of accurate (by virtue of the second‐order spatial and temporal accuracies of the scheme) and efficient (by virtue of the less stringent Courant–Friedrich–Lewy (CFL) condition of Lagrangian methods) schemes on adaptive unstructured triangular grids. Lagrangian methods are natural candidates for use with adaptive unstructured grids because the resolution of the grid can be increased without having to decrease the time step in order to satisfy stability. An advancing front adaptive unstructured triangular mesh generator is presented. The highlight of this algorithm is that the weak Lagrange–Galerkin method is used to project the conservation variables from the old mesh onto the newly adapted mesh. In addition, two new schemes for computing the characteristic curves are presented: a composite mid‐point rule and a general family of Runge–Kutta schemes. Results for the two‐dimensional advection equation with and without time‐dependent velocity fields are illustrated to confirm the accuracy of the particle trajectories. Results for the two‐dimensional shallow water equations on a non‐linear soliton wave are presented to illustrate the power and flexibility of this strategy. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A spectral‐element discontinuous Galerkin thermal lattice Boltzmann method for conjugate heat transfer applications

We present a spectral‐element discontinuous Galerkin thermal lattice Boltzmann method for fluid–solid conjugate heat transfer applications. Using the discrete Boltzmann equation, we propose a numerical scheme for conjugate heat transfer applications on unstructured, non‐uniform grids. We employ a double‐distribution thermal lattice Boltzmann model to resolve flows with variable Prandtl (Pr) number. Based upon its finite element heritage, the spectral‐element discontinuous Galerkin discretization provides an effective means to model and investigate thermal transport in applications with complex geometries. Our solutions are represented by the tensor product basis of the one‐dimensional Legendre–Lagrange interpolation polynomials. A high‐order discretization is employed on body‐conforming hexahedral elements with Gauss–Lobatto–Legendre quadrature nodes. Thermal and hydrodynamic bounce‐back boundary conditions are imposed via the numerical flux formulation that arises because of the discontinuous Galerkin approach. As a result, our scheme does not require tedious extrapolation at the boundaries, which may cause loss of mass conservation. We compare solutions of the proposed scheme with an analytical solution for a solid–solid conjugate heat transfer problem in a 2D annulus and illustrate the capture of temperature continuities across interfaces for conductivity ratio γ > 1. We also investigate the effect of Reynolds (Re) and Grashof (Gr) number on the conjugate heat transfer between a heat‐generating solid and a surrounding fluid. Steady‐state results are presented for Re = 5?40 and Gr = 10⁵?10⁶. In each case, we discuss the effect of Re and Gr on the heat flux (i.e. Nusselt number Nu) at the fluid–solid interface. Our results are validated against previous studies that employ finite‐difference and continuous spectral‐element methods to solve the Navier–Stokes equations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Augmented mixed finite element methods for a vorticity‐based velocity–pressure–stress formulation of the Stokes problem in 2D

In this paper, we consider an augmented velocity–pressure–stress formulation of the 2D Stokes problem, in which the stress is defined in terms of the vorticity and the pressure, and then we introduce and analyze stable mixed finite element methods to solve the associated Galerkin scheme. In this way, we further extend similar procedures applied recently to linear elasticity and to other mixed formulations for incompressible fluid flows. Indeed, our approach is based on the introduction of the Galerkin least‐squares‐type terms arising from the corresponding constitutive and equilibrium equations, and from the Dirichlet boundary condition for the velocity, all of them multiplied by stabilization parameters. Then, we show that these parameters can be suitably chosen so that the resulting operator equation induces a strongly coercive bilinear form, whence the associated Galerkin scheme becomes well posed for any choice of finite element subspaces. In particular, we can use continuous piecewise linear velocities, piecewise constant pressures, and rotated Raviart–Thomas elements for the stresses. Next, we derive reliable and efficient residual‐based a posteriori error estimators for the augmented mixed finite element schemes. In addition, several numerical experiments illustrating the performance of the augmented mixed finite element methods, confirming the properties of the a posteriori estimators, and showing the behavior of the associated adaptive algorithms are reported. The present work should be considered as a first step aiming finally to derive augmented mixed finite element methods for vorticity‐based formulations of the 3D Stokes problem. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multigrid solutions of the Euler and Navier–Stokes equations on unstructured grids

A computationally efficient multigrid algorithm for upwind edge‐based finite element schemes is developed for the solution of the two‐dimensional Euler and Navier–Stokes equations on unstructured triangular grids. The basic smoother is based upon a Galerkin approximation employing an edge‐based formulation with the explicit addition of an upwind‐type local extremum diminishing (LED) method. An explicit time stepping method is used to advance the solution towards the steady state. Fully unstructured grids are employed to increase the flexibility of the proposed algorithm. A full approximation storage (FAS) algorithm is used as the basic multigrid acceleration procedure. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Large‐eddy simulation with complex 2‐D geometries using a parallel finite‐element/spectral algorithm

A parallel stabilized finite‐element/spectral formulation is presented for incompressible large‐eddy simulation with complex 2‐D geometries. A unique discretization scheme is developed consisting of a streamline‐upwind Petrov–Galerkin/Pressure‐Stabilized Petrov–Galerkin (SUPG/PSPG) finite‐element discretization in the 2‐D plane with a collocated spectral/pseudospectral discretization in the out‐of‐plane direction. This formulation provides an efficient approach for solving 3‐D flows over arbitrary 2‐D geometries. Utilizing this discretization and through explicit temporal treatment of the non‐linear terms, the system of equations for each Fourier mode is decoupled within each time step. A novel parallelization approach is then taken, where the computational work is partitioned in Fourier space. A validation of the algorithm is presented via comparison of results for flow past a circular cylinder with published values for Re=195, 300, and 3900. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An hp‐adaptive discontinuous Galerkin method for shallow water flows

An adaptive spectral/hp discontinuous Galerkin method for the two‐dimensional shallow water equations is presented. The model uses an orthogonal modal basis of arbitrary polynomial order p defined on unstructured, possibly non‐conforming, triangular elements for the spatial discretization. Based on a simple error indicator constructed by the solutions of approximation order p and p?1, we allow both for the mesh size, h, and polynomial approximation order to dynamically change during the simulation. For the h‐type refinement, the parent element is subdivided into four similar sibling elements. The time‐stepping is performed using a third‐order Runge–Kutta scheme. The performance of the hp‐adaptivity is illustrated for several test cases. It is found that for the case of smooth flows, p‐adaptivity is more efficient than h‐adaptivity with respect to degrees of freedom and computational time. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development and validation of a SUPG finite element scheme for the compressible Navier–Stokes equations using a modified inviscid flux discretization

This paper considers the streamline‐upwind Petrov–Galerkin (SUPG) method applied to the unsteady compressible Navier–Stokes equations in conservation‐variable form. The spatial discretization, including a modified approach for interpolating the inviscid flux terms in the SUPG finite element formulation, and the second‐order accurate time discretization are presented. The numerical method is discussed in detail. The performance of the algorithm is then investigated by considering inviscid flow past a circular cylinder. Validation of the finite element formulation via comparisons with experimental data for high‐Mach number perfect gas laminar flows is presented, with a specific focus on comparisons with experimentally measured skin friction and convective heat transfer on a 15° compression ramp. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A coupled continuous and discontinuous finite element method for the incompressible flows

In this paper, we develop a coupled continuous Galerkin and discontinuous Galerkin finite element method based on a split scheme to solve the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. In order to use the equal order interpolation functions for velocity and pressure, we decouple the original Navier–Stokes equations and obtain three distinct equations through the split method, which are nonlinear hyperbolic, elliptic, and Helmholtz equations, respectively. The hybrid method combines the merits of discontinuous Galerkin (DG) and finite element method (FEM). Therefore, DG is concerned to accomplish the spatial discretization of the nonlinear hyperbolic equation to avoid using the stabilization approaches that appeared in FEM. Moreover, FEM is utilized to deal with the Poisson and Helmholtz equations to reduce the computational cost compared with DG. As for the temporal discretization, a second‐order stiffly stable approach is employed. Several typical benchmarks, namely, the Poiseuille flow, the backward‐facing step flow, and the flow around the cylinder with a wide range of Reynolds numbers, are considered to demonstrate and validate the feasibility, accuracy, and efficiency of this coupled method. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A second‐order time accurate finite element method for quasi‐incompressible viscous flows

A finite element method for quasi‐incompressible viscous flows is presented. An equation for pressure is derived from a second‐order time accurate Taylor–Galerkin procedure that combines the mass and the momentum conservation laws. At each time step, once the pressure has been determined, the velocity field is computed solving discretized equations obtained from another second‐order time accurate scheme and a least‐squares minimization of spatial momentum residuals. The terms that stabilize the finite element method (controlling wiggles and circumventing the Babuska–Brezzi condition) arise naturally from the process, rather than being introduced a priori in the variational formulation. A comparison between the present second‐order accurate method and our previous first‐order accurate formulation is shown. The method is also demonstrated in the computation of the leaky‐lid driven cavity flow and in the simulation of a crossflow past a circular cylinder. In both cases, good agreement with previously published experimental and computational results has been obtained. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time‐accurate stabilized finite‐element model for weakly nonlinear and weakly dispersive water waves

Introduction of a time‐accurate stabilized finite‐element approximation for the numerical investigation of weakly nonlinear and weakly dispersive water waves is presented in this paper. To make the time approximation match the order of accuracy of the spatial representation of the linear triangular elements by the Galerkin finite‐element method, the fourth‐order time integration of implicit multistage Padé method is used for the development of the numerical scheme. The streamline‐upwind Petrov–Galerkin (SUPG) method with crosswind diffusion is employed to stabilize the scheme and suppress the spurious oscillations, usually common in the numerical computation of convection‐dominated flow problems. The performance of numerical stabilization and accuracy is addressed. Treatments of various boundary conditions, including the open boundary conditions, the perfect reflecting boundary conditions along boundaries with irregular geometry, are also described. Numerical results showing the comparisons with analytical solutions, experimental measurements, and other published numerical results are presented and discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A comparative study of GLS finite elements with velocity and pressure equally interpolated for solving incompressible viscous flows

A comparative study of the bi‐linear and bi‐quadratic quadrilateral elements and the quadratic triangular element for solving incompressible viscous flows is presented. These elements make use of the stabilized finite element formulation of the Galerkin/least‐squares method to simulate the flows, with the pressure and velocity fields interpolated with equal orders. The tangent matrices are explicitly derived and the Newton–Raphson algorithm is employed to solve the resulting nonlinear equations. The numerical solutions of the classical lid‐driven cavity flow problem are obtained for Reynolds numbers between 1000 and 20 000 and the accuracy and converging rate of the different elements are compared. The influence on the numerical solution of the least square of incompressible condition is also studied. The numerical example shows that the quadratic triangular element exhibits a better compromise between accuracy and converging rate than the other two elements. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A high‐order triangular discontinuous Galerkin oceanic shallow water model

A high‐order triangular discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method is applied to the two‐dimensional oceanic shallow water equations. The DG method can be characterized as the fusion of finite elements with finite volumes. This DG formulation uses high‐order Lagrange polynomials on the triangle using nodal sets up to 15th order. Both the area and boundary integrals are evaluated using order 2N Gauss cubature rules. The use of exact integration for the area integrals leads naturally to a full mass matrix; however, by using straight‐edged triangles we eliminate the mass matrix completely from the discrete equations. Besides obviating the need for a mass matrix, triangular elements offer other obvious advantages in the construction of oceanic shallow water models, specifically the ability to use unstructured grids in order to better represent the continental coastlines for use in tsunami modeling. In this paper, we focus primarily on testing the discrete spatial operators by using six test cases—three of which have analytic solutions. The three tests having analytic solutions show that the high‐order triangular DG method exhibits exponential convergence. Furthermore, comparisons with a spectral element model show that the DG model is superior for all polynomial orders and test cases considered. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Two‐level finite element method with a stabilizing subgrid for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

We consider the Galerkin finite element method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in two dimensions. The domain is discretized into a set of regular triangular elements and the finite‐dimensional spaces employed consist of piecewise continuous linear interpolants enriched with the residual‐free bubble functions. To find the bubble part of the solution, a two‐level finite element method with a stabilizing subgrid of a single node is described, and its application to the Navier–Stokes equation is displayed. Numerical approximations employing the proposed algorithm are presented for three benchmark problems. The results show that the proper choice of the subgrid node is crucial in obtaining stable and accurate numerical approximations consistent with the physical configuration of the problem at a cheap computational cost. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coupling of finite element method and discontinuous Galerkin method to simulate viscoelastic flows

In this paper, a numerical method, which is about the coupling of continuous and discontinuous Galerkin method based on the splitting scheme, is presented for the calculation of viscoelastic flows of the Oldroyd‐B fluid. The momentum equation is discretized in time by using the Adams‐Bashforth second‐order algorithm, and then decoupled via the splitting approach. Considering the Oldroyd‐B constitutive equation, the second‐order Runge‐Kutta approach is selected to complete the temporal discretization. As for the spatial discretizations, the fundamental purpose is to make the best of finite element method (FEM) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method to handle different types of equations. Specifically speaking, for the subequations, FEM is chosen to treat the Poisson and Helmholtz equations, and DG is employed to deal with the nonlinear convective term. In addition, because of the hyperbolic nature, DG is also utilized to discretize the Oldroyd‐B constitutive equation spatially. This coupled method avoids resorting to extra stabilization technique occurred in standard FEM framework even for moderately high values of Weissenberg number and also reduces the complexity compared with unified DG scheme. The Oldroyd‐B model is applied to investigate several typical and challenging benchmarks, such as the 4:1 planar contraction flow and the lid‐driven cavity flow, with a wide range of Weissenberg number to illustrate the feasibility, robustness, and validity of our coupled method.     

Sparse element for shallow water wave equations on triangle meshes

Within the mixed FEM, the mini‐element that uses a bubble shape function for the solution of the shallow water wave equations on triangle meshes is simplified to a sparse element formulation. The new formulation has linear shape functions for water levels and constant shape functions for velocities inside each element. The suppression of decoupled spurious solutions is excellent with the new scheme. The linear dispersion relation of the new element has similar advantages as that of the wave equation scheme (generalised wave continuity scheme) proposed by Lynch and Gray. It is shown that the relation is monotonic over all wave numbers. In this paper, the time stepping scheme is included in the dispersion analysis. In case of a combined space–time staggering, the dispersion relation can be improved for the shortest waves. The sparse element is applied in the flow model Bubble that conserves mass exactly. At the same time, because of the limited number of degrees of freedom, the computational efficiency is high. The scheme is not restricted to orthogonal triangular meshes. Three test cases demonstrate the very good accuracy of the proposed scheme. The examples are the classical quarter annulus test case for the linearised shallow water equations, the hydraulic jump and the tide in the Elbe river mouth. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Explicit formulations for evaluation of velocity gradients using boundary‐domain integral equations in 2D and 3D viscous flows

In this paper, explicit boundary‐domain integral equations for evaluating velocity gradients are derived from the basic velocity integral equations. A free term is produced in the new strongly singular integral equation, which is not included in recent formulations using the complex variable differentiation method (CVDM) to compute velocity gradients (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 2004; 45 :463–484; Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 2005; 47 :19–43). The strongly singular domain integrals involved in the new integral equations are accurately evaluated using the radial integration method (RIM). Considerable computational time for evaluating integrals of velocity gradients can be saved by using present formulation than using CVDM. The formulation derived in this paper together with those presented in reference (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 2004; 45 :463–484) for 2D and in (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 2005; 47 :19–43) for 3D problems constitutes a complete boundary‐domain integral equation system for solving full Navier–Stokes equations using primitive variables. Three numerical examples for steady incompressible viscous flow are given to validate the derived formulations. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Explicit reduced‐order models for the stabilized finite element approximation of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

In this paper, we present an explicit formulation for reduced‐order models of the stabilized finite element approximation of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The basic idea is to build a reduced‐order model based on a proper orthogonal decomposition and a Galerkin projection and treat all the terms in an explicit way in the time integration scheme, including the pressure. This is possible because the reduced model snapshots do already fulfill the continuity equation. The pressure field is automatically recovered from the reduced‐order basis and solution coefficients. The main advantage of this explicit treatment of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations is that it allows for the easy use of hyper‐reduced order models, because only the right‐hand side vector needs to be recovered by means of a gappy data reconstruction procedure. A method for choosing the optimal set of sampling points at the discrete level in the gappy procedure is also presented. Numerical examples show the performance of the proposed strategy. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A sensitivity analysis on the parameter of the GLS method for a second‐gradient theory of incompressible flow

Using a non‐conforming C⁰‐interior penalty method and the Galerkin least‐square approach, we develop a continuous–discontinuous Galerkin finite element method for discretizing fourth‐order incompressible flow problems. The formulation is weakly coercive for spaces that fail to satisfy the inf‐sup condition and consider discontinuous basis functions for the pressure field. We consider the results of a stability analysis through a lemma which indicates that there exists an optimal or quasi‐optimal least‐square stability parameter that depends on the polynomial degree used to interpolate the velocity and pressure fields, and on the geometry of the finite element in the mesh. We provide several numerical experiments illustrating such dependence, as well as the robustness of the method to deal with arbitrary basis functions for velocity and pressure, and the ability to stabilize large pressure gradients. We believe the results provided in this paper contribute for establishing a paradigm for future studies of the parameter of the Galerkin least square method for second‐gradient theory of incompressible flow problems. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Two‐level finite element method with a stabilizing subgrid for the incompressible MHD equations

We consider the Galerkin finite element method (FEM) for the incompressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations in two dimension. The domain is discretized into a set of regular triangular elements and the finite‐dimensional spaces employed consist of piecewise continuous linear interpolants enriched with the residual‐free bubble functions. To find the bubble part of the solution, a two‐level FEM with a stabilizing subgrid of a single node is described and its application to the MHD equations is displayed. Numerical approximations employing the proposed algorithm are presented for three benchmark problems including the MHD cavity flow and the MHD flow over a step. The results show that the proper choice of the subgrid node is crucial to get stable and accurate numerical approximations consistent with the physical configuration of the problem at a cheap computational cost. Furthermore, the approximate solutions obtained show the well‐known characteristics of the MHD flow. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.