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.     

An adaptive discretization of shallow‐water equations based on discontinuous Galerkin methods

In this paper, we present a discontinuous Galerkin formulation of the shallow‐water equations. An orthogonal basis is used for the spatial discretization and an explicit Runge–Kutta scheme is used for time discretization. Some results of second‐order anisotropic adaptive calculations are presented for dam breaking problems. The adaptive procedure uses an error indicator that concentrates the computational effort near discontinuities like hydraulic jumps. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A triangular spectral/hp discontinuous Galerkin method for modelling 2D shallow water equations

We present a spectral/hp element discontinuous Galerkin model for simulating shallow water flows on unstructured triangular meshes. The model uses an orthogonal modal expansion basis of arbitrary order for the spatial discretization and a third‐order Runge–Kutta scheme to advance in time. The local elements are coupled together by numerical fluxes, evaluated using the HLLC Riemann solver. We apply the model to test cases involving smooth flows and demonstrate the exponentially fast convergence with regard to polynomial order. We also illustrate that even for results of ‘engineering accuracy’ the computational efficiency increases with increasing order of the model and time of integration. The model is found to be robust in the presence of shocks where Gibbs oscillations can be suppressed by slope limiting. Copyright 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Boundary discretization for high‐order discontinuous Galerkin computations of tidal flows around shallow water islands

In this paper some preliminary results concerning the application of the high‐order discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method for the resolution of realistic problems of tidal flows around shallow water islands are presented. In particular, tidal flows are computed around the Rattray island located in the Great Barrier Reef. This island is a standard benchmark problem well documented in the literature providing useful in situ measurements for validation of the model. Realistic elements of the simulation are a tidal flow forcing, a variable bathymetry and a non‐trivial coastline. The computation of tidal flows in shallow water around an island is very similar to the simulation of the Euler equations around bluff bodies in quasi‐steady flows. The main difference lies in the high irregularity of islands' shapes and in the fact that, in the framework of large‐scale ocean models, the number of elements to represent an island is drastically limited compared with classical engineering computations. We observe that the high‐order DG method applied to shallow water flows around bluff bodies with poor linear boundary representations produces oscillations and spurious eddies. Surprisingly those eddies may have the right size and intensity but may be generated by numerical diffusion and are not always mathematically relevant. Although not interested in solving accurately the boundary layers of an island, we show that a high‐order boundary representation is mandatory to avoid non‐physical eddies and spurious oscillations. It is then possible to parametrize accurately the subgrid‐scale processes to introduce the correct amount of diffusion in the model. The DG results around the Rattray island are eventually compared with current measurements and reveal good agreement. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An eigenvector‐based linear reconstruction scheme for the shallow‐water equations on two‐dimensional unstructured meshes

This paper presents a new approach to MUSCL reconstruction for solving the shallow‐water equations on two‐dimensional unstructured meshes. The approach takes advantage of the particular structure of the shallow‐water equations. Indeed, their hyperbolic nature allows the flow variables to be expressed as a linear combination of the eigenvectors of the system. The particularity of the shallow‐water equations is that the coefficients of this combination only depend upon the water depth. Reconstructing only the water depth with second‐order accuracy and using only a first‐order reconstruction for the flow velocity proves to be as accurate as the classical MUSCL approach. The method also appears to be more robust in cases with very strong depth gradients such as the propagation of a wave on a dry bed. Since only one reconstruction is needed (against three reconstructions in the MUSCL approach) the EVR method is shown to be 1.4–5 times as fast as the classical MUSCL scheme, depending on the computational application. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multirate time stepping for accelerating explicit discontinuous Galerkin computations with application to geophysical flows

This paper presents multirate explicit time‐stepping schemes for solving partial differential equations with discontinuous Galerkin elements in the framework of Large‐scale marine flows. It addresses the variability of the local stable time steps by gathering the mesh elements in appropriate groups. The real challenge is to develop methods exhibiting mass conservation and consistency. Two multirate approaches, based on standard explicit Runge–Kutta methods, are analyzed. They are well suited and optimized for the discontinuous Galerkin framework. The significant speedups observed for the hydrodynamic application of the Great Barrier Reef confirm the theoretical expectations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stability/dispersion analysis of the discontinuous Galerkin linearized shallow‐water system

The frequency or dispersion relation for the discontinuous Galerkin mixed formulation of the 1‐D linearized shallow‐water equations is analysed, using several basic DG mixed schemes. The dispersion properties are compared analytically and graphically with those of the mixed continuous Galerkin formulation for piecewise‐linear bases on co‐located grids. Unlike the Galerkin case, the DG scheme does not exhibit spurious stationary pressure modes. However, spurious propagating modes have been identified in all the present discontinuous Galerkin formulations. Numerical solutions of a test problem to simulate fast gravity modes illustrate the theoretical results and confirm the presence of spurious propagating modes in the DG schemes. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High‐order accurate p‐multigrid discontinuous Galerkin solution of the Euler equations

Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods have proven to be perfectly suited for the construction of very high‐order accurate numerical schemes on arbitrary unstructured and possibly nonconforming grids for a wide variety of applications, but are rather demanding in terms of computational resources. In order to improve the computational efficiency of this class of methods a p‐multigrid solution strategy has been developed, which is based on a semi‐implicit Runge–Kutta smoother for high‐order polynomial approximations and the implicit Backward Euler smoother for piecewise constant approximations. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by comparison with p‐multigrid schemes employing purely explicit smoothing operators for several 2D inviscid test cases. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Semi‐Lagrangian semi‐implicit time‐splitting scheme for the shallow water equations

Time‐splitting technique applied in the context of the semi‐Lagrangian semi‐implicit method allows the use of extended time steps mainly based on physical considerations and reduces the number of numerical operations at each time step such that it is approximately proportional to the number of the points of spatial grid. To control time growth of the additional truncation errors, the standard stabilizing correction method is modified with no penalty for accuracy and efficiency of the algorithm. A linear analysis shows that constructed scheme is stable for time steps up to 2h. Numerical integrations with actual atmospheric fields of pressure and wind confirm computational efficiency, extended stability and accuracy of the proposed scheme. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An improvement of classical slope limiters for high‐order discontinuous Galerkin method

In this paper, we describe some existing slope limiters (Cockburn and Shu's slope limiter and Hoteit's slope limiter) for the two‐dimensional Runge–Kutta discontinuous Galerkin (RKDG) method on arbitrary unstructured triangular grids. We describe the strategies for detecting discontinuities and for limiting spurious oscillations near such discontinuities, when solving hyperbolic systems of conservation laws by high‐order discontinuous Galerkin methods. The disadvantage of these slope limiters is that they depend on a positive constant, which is, for specific hydraulic problems, difficult to estimate in order to eliminate oscillations near discontinuities without decreasing the high‐order accuracy of the scheme in the smooth regions. We introduce the idea of a simple modification of Cockburn and Shu's slope limiter to avoid the use of this constant number. This modification consists in: slopes are limited so that the solution at the integration points is in the range spanned by the neighboring solution averages. Numerical results are presented for a nonlinear system: the shallow water equations. Four hydraulic problems of discontinuous solutions of two‐dimensional shallow water are presented. The idealized dam break problem, the oblique hydraulic jump problem, flow in a channel with concave bed and the dam break problem in a converging–diverging channel are solved by using the different slope limiters. Numerical comparisons on unstructured meshes show a superior accuracy with the modified slope limiter. Moreover, it does not require the choice of any constant number for the limiter condition. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Practical evaluation of five partly discontinuous finite element pairs for the non‐conservative shallow water equations

This paper provides a comparison of five finite element pairs for the shallow water equations. We consider continuous, discontinuous and partially discontinuous finite element formulations that are supposed to provide second‐order spatial accuracy. All of them rely on the same weak formulation, using Riemann solver to evaluate interface integrals. We define several asymptotic limit cases of the shallow water equations within their space of parameters. The idea is to develop a comparison of these numerical schemes in several relevant regimes of the subcritical shallow water flow. Finally, a new pair, using non‐conforming linear elements for both velocities and elevation (P?P), is presented, giving optimal rates of convergence in all test cases. P?P₁ and P?P₁ mixed formulations lack convergence for inviscid flows. P?P₂ pair is more expensive but provides accurate results for all benchmarks. P?P provides an efficient option, except for inviscid Coriolis‐dominated flows, where a small lack of convergence is observed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High‐order semi‐implicit time‐integrators for a triangular discontinuous Galerkin oceanic shallow water model

We extend the explicit in time high‐order triangular discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method to semi‐implicit (SI) and then apply the algorithm to the two‐dimensional oceanic shallow water equations; we implement high‐order SI time‐integrators using the backward difference formulas from orders one to six. The reason for changing the time‐integration method from explicit to SI is that explicit methods require a very small time step in order to maintain stability, especially for high‐order DG methods. Changing the time‐integration method to SI allows one to circumvent the stability criterion due to the gravity waves, which for most shallow water applications are the fastest waves in the system (the exception being supercritical flow where the Froude number is greater than one). The challenge of constructing a SI method for a DG model is that the DG machinery requires not only the standard finite element‐type area integrals, but also the finite volume‐type boundary integrals as well. These boundary integrals pose the biggest challenge in a SI discretization because they require the construction of a Riemann solver that is the true linear representation of the nonlinear Riemann problem; if this condition is not satisfied then the resulting numerical method will not be consistent with the continuous equations. In this paper we couple the SI time‐integrators with the DG method while maintaining most of the usual attributes associated with DG methods such as: high‐order accuracy (in both space and time), parallel efficiency, excellent stability, and conservation. The only property lost is that of a compact communication stencil typical of time‐explicit DG methods; implicit methods will always require a much larger communication stencil. We apply the new high‐order SI DG method to the shallow water equations and show results for many standard test cases of oceanic interest such as: standing, Kelvin and Rossby soliton waves, and the Stommel problem. The results show that the new high‐order SI DG model, that has already been shown to yield exponentially convergent solutions in space for smooth problems, results in a more efficient model than its explicit counterpart. Furthermore, for those problems where the spatial resolution is sufficiently high compared with the length scales of the flow, the capacity to use high‐order (HO) time‐integrators is a necessary complement to the employment of HO space discretizations, since the total numerical error would be otherwise dominated by the time discretization error. In fact, in the limit of increasing spatial resolution, it makes little sense to use HO spatial discretizations coupled with low‐order time discretizations. Published in 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Divergence‐free discontinuous Galerkin schemes for the Stokes equations and the MAC scheme

We show that recently studied discontinuous Galerkin discretizations in their lowest order version are very similar to the marker and cell (MAC) finite difference scheme. Indeed, applying a slight modification, the exact MAC scheme can be recovered. Therefore, the analysis applied to the DG methods applies to the MAC scheme as well and the DG methods provide a natural generalization of the MAC scheme to higher order and irregular meshes. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An upstream flux‐splitting finite‐volume scheme for 2D shallow water equations

An upstream flux‐splitting finite‐volume (UFF) scheme is proposed for the solutions of the 2D shallow water equations. In the framework of the finite‐volume method, the artificially upstream flux vector splitting method is employed to establish the numerical flux function for the local Riemann problem. Based on this algorithm, an UFF scheme without Jacobian matrix operation is developed. The proposed scheme satisfying entropy condition is extended to be second‐order‐accurate using the MUSCL approach. The proposed UFF scheme and its second‐order extension are verified through the simulations of four shallow water problems, including the 1D idealized dam breaking, the oblique hydraulic jump, the circular dam breaking, and the dam‐break experiment with 45° bend channel. Meanwhile, the numerical performance of the UFF scheme is compared with those of three well‐known upwind schemes, namely the Osher, Roe, and HLL schemes. It is demonstrated that the proposed scheme performs remarkably well for shallow water flows. The simulated results also show that the UFF scheme has superior overall numerical performances among the schemes tested. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Edge‐based finite element method for shallow water equations

This paper describes an edge‐based implementation of the generalized residual minimum (GMRES) solver for the fully coupled solution of non‐linear systems arising from finite element discretization of shallow water equations (SWEs). The gain in terms of memory, floating point operations and indirect addressing is quantified for semi‐discrete and space–time analyses. Stabilized formulations, including Petrov–Galerkin models and discontinuity‐capturing operators, are also discussed for both types of discretization. Results illustrating the quality of the stabilized solutions and the advantages of using the edge‐based approach are presented at the end of the paper. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A discontinuous Galerkin scheme for the numerical solution of flow problems with discontinuities

In this paper, a new discontinuous Galerkin finite element method for the numerical solution of flow problems with discontinuities is presented. The method is based on the limitation in every cell of the difference between the extrema values and the mean value of the numerical solution. The algorithm and technical details for the implementation of the method are presented in one‐and two‐dimensional problems. Numerical experiments for classical test problems are solved on unstructured triangulations to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time accurate local time stepping for the unsteady shallow water equations

Two time accurate local time stepping (LTS) strategies originally developed for the Euler equations are presented and applied to the unsteady shallow water equations of open channel flow. Using the techniques presented allows individual cells to be advanced to different points in time, in a time accurate fashion. The methods shown are incorporated into an explicit finite volume version of Roe's scheme which is implemented in conjunction with an upwind treatment for the source terms. A comparison is made between the results obtained using the conventional time stepping approach and the two LTS methods through a series of test cases. The results illustrate a number of benefits of using LTS which included reduced run times and improved solution accuracy. In addition it is shown how using an upwind source term treatment can be beneficial for flows dominated by the geometry. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An agglomeration‐based adaptive discontinuous Galerkin method for compressible flows

In this work, we exploit the possibility to devise discontinuous Galerkin discretizations over polytopic grids to perform grid adaptation strategies on the basis of agglomeration coarsening of a fine grid obtained via standard unstructured mesh generators. The adaptive agglomeration process is here driven by an adjoint‐based error estimator. We investigate several strategies for converting the error field estimated solving the adjoint problem into an agglomeration factor field that is an indication of the number of elements of the fine grid that should be clustered together to form an agglomerated element. As a result the size of agglomerated elements is optimized for the achievement of the best accuracy for given grid size with respect to the target quantities. To demonstrate the potential of this strategy we consider problem‐specific outputs of interest typical of aerodynamics, eg, the lift and drag coefficients in the context of inviscid and viscous flows test cases.     

A high-order nodal discontinuous Galerkin method to solve preconditioned multiphase Euler/Navier-Stokes equations for inviscid/viscous cavitating flows

In this study, a high-order accurate numerical method is applied and examined for the simulation of the inviscid/viscous cavitating flows by solving the preconditioned multiphase Euler/Navier-Stokes equations on triangle elements. The formulation used here is based on the homogeneous equilibrium model considering the continuity and momentum equations together with the transport equation for the vapor phase with applying appropriate mass transfer terms for calculating the evaporation/condensation of the liquid/vapor phase. The spatial derivative terms in the resulting system of equations are discretized by the nodal discontinuous Galerkin method (NDGM) and an implicit dual-time stepping method is used for the time integration. An artificial viscosity approach is implemented and assessed for capturing the steep discontinuities in the interface between the two phases. The accuracy and robustness of the proposed method in solving the preconditioned multiphase Euler/Navier-Stokes equations are examined by the simulation of different two-dimensional and axisymmetric cavitating flows. A sensitivity study is also performed to examine the effects of different numerical parameters on the accuracy and performance of the solution of the NDGM. Indications are that the solution methodology proposed and applied here is based on the NDGM with the implicit dual-time stepping method and the artificial viscosity approach is accurate and robust for the simulation of the inviscid and viscous cavitating flows.     

One‐dimensional shock‐capturing for high‐order discontinuous Galerkin methods

Discontinuous Galerkin methods have emerged in recent years as an alternative for nonlinear conservation equations. In particular, their inherent structure (a numerical flux based on a suitable approximate Riemann solver introduces some stabilization) suggests that they are specially adapted to capture shocks. However, numerical fluxes are not sufficient to stabilize the solution in the presence of shocks. Thus, slope limiter methods, which are extensions of finite volume methods, have been proposed. These techniques require, in practice, mesh adaption to localize the shock structure. This is is more obvious for large elements typical of high‐order approximations. Here, a new approach based on the introduction of artificial diffusion into the original equations is presented. The order is not systematically decreased to one in the presence of the shock, large high‐order elements can be used, and several linear and nonlinear tests demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methodology. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.