Symmetric Gauss-Seidel multigrid solution of the Euler equations on structured and unstructured grids

The efficient symmetric Gauss-Seidel (SGS) algorithm for solving the Euler equations of inviscid, compressible flow on structured grids, developed in collaboration with Jameson of Stanford University, is extended to unstructured grids. The algorithm uses a nonlinear formulation of an SGS solver, implemented within the framework of multigrid. The earlier form of the algorithm used the natural (lexicographic) ordering of the mesh cells available on structured grids for the SGS sweeps, but a number of features of the method that are believed to contribute to its success can also be implemented for computations on unstructured grids. The present paper reviews, the features of the SGS multigrid solver for structured gr0ids, including its nonlinear implementation, its use of “absolute” Jacobian matrix preconditioning, and its incorporation of multigrid, and then describes the incorporation of these features into an algorithm suitable for computations on unstructured grids. The implementation on unstructured grids is based on the agglomerated multigrid method developed by Sørensen, which uses an explicit Runge-Kutta smoothing algorithm. Results of computations for steady, transonic flows past two-dimensional airfoils are presented, and the efficiency of the method is evaluated for computations on both structured and unstructured meshes.