High-order hybridisable discontinuous Galerkin method for the gas kinetic equation

ABSTRACT

The high-order hybridisable discontinuous Galerkin (HDG) method is used to find steady-state solution of gas kinetic equations on two-dimensional geometry. The velocity distribution function and its traces are approximated in piecewise polynomial space on triangular mesh and mesh skeleton, respectively. By employing a numerical flux derived from the upwind scheme and imposing its continuity on mesh skeleton, the global system for unknown traces is obtained with fewer coupled degrees of freedom, compared to the original DG method. The solutions of model equation for the Poiseuille flow through square channel show the higher order solver is faster than the lower order one. Moreover, the HDG scheme is more efficient than the original DG method when the degree of approximating polynomial is larger than 2. Finally, the developed scheme is extended to solve the Boltzmann equation with full collision operator, which can produce accurate results for shear-driven and thermally induced flows.