The residual formulation of the method of manufactured solutions for computationally efficient solution verification

The method of manufactured solutions (MMS) is a solution verification methodology for determining whether the implementation of a discretization method is achieving its theoretical order of accuracy. This methodology combines the advantages of grid refinement studies and comparison with exact solution, by modifying the governing equations solved within a code by adding a source term to drive the solution towards a predetermined analytic function. By solving the modified equations on a sequence of grids and comparing the differences between the converged solution and manufactured solution, the order of accuracy of the implementation can be investigated. However, in its current form, converged solutions on a sequence of grids are required which can be quite costly and difficult to obtain. In this paper, by comparing the MMS to the method for determining the theoretical order of accuracy of a discretization method, the residual formulation of the MMS is developed. This new formulation only requires that the residual of the discretized governing equations to be calculated and not the solution to the discretized equations, thus avoiding the computational cost and difficulties inherent in obtaining converged solutions. Furthermore, since only the residuals are interrogated, individual components of the flow solver can be tested, in isolation, allowing the MMS to be used more effectively in locating errors within the code. This new approach is demonstrated to yield the same order of accuracy as the original MMS using three different cases—one-dimensional porous media equation, one-dimensional St Venant equations and two-dimensional unstructured Navier–Stokes simulations.