Dimitri J. Mavriplis

Finite volume solution of the two-dimensional Euler equations on a regular triangular mesh

The two-dimensional Euler equations have been solved on a triangular grid by a multigrid scheme using the finite volume approach. By careful construction of the dissipative terms, the scheme is designed to be secondorder accurate in space, provided the grid is smooth, except in the vicinity of shocks, where it behaves as firstorder accurate. In its present form, the accuracy and convergence rate of the triangle code are comparable to that of the quadrilateral mesh code of Jameson.

Multigrid solution of the Navier-Stokes equations on triangular meshes

A new Navier-Stokes algorithm for use on unstructured triangular meshes is presented. Spatial discretization of the governing equations is achieved using a finite-element Galerkin approximation, which can be shown to be equivalent to a finite-volume approximation for regular equilateral triangular meshes. Integration to steady state is performed using a multistage time-stepping scheme, and convergence is accelerated by means of implicit residual smoothing and an unstructured multigrid algorithm. Directional scaling of the artificial dissipation and the implicit residual smoothing operator is achieved for unstructured meshes by considering local mesh stretching vectors at each point. The accuracy of the scheme for highly stretched triangular meshes is validated by comparing computed flat-plate laminar boundary-layer results with the well known similarity solution and by comparing laminar airfoil results with those obtained from various well established structured, quadrilateralmesh codes. The convergence efficiency of the present method is also shown to be competitive with those demonstrated by structured quadrilateral-mesh algorithms.

Accurate multigrid solution of the Euler equations on unstructured and adaptive meshes

A method for accurately solving inviscid compressible flow in the subcritical and supercritical regimes about complex configurations is presented. The method is based on the use of unstructured triangular meshes in two dimensions, and special emphasis is placed on the accuracy and efficiency of the solutions. High accuracy is achieved by careful scaling of the artificial dissipation terms, and by reformulating the inner and outer boundary conditions for both the convective and dissipative operators. An adaptive grid refinement strategy is presented which enhances the solution accuracy for complex flows. When coupled with an unstructured multigrid algorithm, this method is shown to produce an efficient solver for flows about arbitrary configurations.

A UNIFIED MULTIGRID SOLVER FOR THE NAVIER-STOKES EQUATIONS ON MIXED ELEMENT MESHES

A unified multigrid solution technique is presented for solving the Euler and Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations on unstructured meshes using mixed elements consisting of triangles and quadrilaterals in two dimensions, and of hexahedra, pyramids, prisms and tetrahedra in three dimensions. While the use of mixed elements is by no means a novel idea, the contribution of the paper lies in the formulation of a complete solution technique which can handle structured grids, block structured grids, and unstructured grids of tetrahedra or mixed elements without any modification. This is achieved by discretizing the full Navier-Stokes equations on tetrahedral elements, and the thin layer version of these equations on other types of elements, while using a single edge-based data-structure to construct the discretization over all element types. An agglomeration multigrid algorithm, which naturally handles meshes of any types of elements, is employed to accelerate convergence. An automatic algorithm which reduces the complexity of a given triangular or tetrahedral mesh by merging candidate triangular or tetrahedral elements into quadrilateral or prismatic elements is also described. The gains in computational efficiency afforded by the use of non-simplicial meshes over fully tetrahedral meshes are demonstrated through several examples.

Three-dimensional unstructured multigrid for the Euler equations

The three-dimensional Euler equations are solved on unstructured tetrahedral meshes using a multigrid strategy. The driving algorithm consists of an explicit vertex-based finite element scheme, which employs an edge-based data structure to assemble the residuals. The multigrid approach employs a sequence of independently generated coarse and fine meshes to accelerate the convergence to steady state of the fine grid solution. Variables, residuals, and corrections are passed back and forth between the various grids of the sequence using linear interpolation. The addresses and weights for interpolation are determined in a preprocessing stage using an efficient graph traversal algorithm. The preprocessing operation is shown to require a negligible fraction of the CPU time required by the overall solution procedure, whereas gains in overall solution efficiencies greater than an order of magnitude are demonstrated on meshes containing up to 350,000 vertices. Solutions using globally regenerated fine meshes as well as adaptively refined meshes are given.

Discrete adjoint-based approach for optimization problems on three-dimensional unstructured meshes

A comprehensive strategy for developing and implementing discrete adjoint methods for aerodynamic shape optimization problems is presented. By linearizing each procedure in the entire optimization problem, transposing each linearization, and reversing the sequential order of operations, the adjoint of the complete optimization problem, including flow equations and mesh motion equations is constructed in a modular and verifiable fashion. This construction is also shown to produce minimal memory overheads, and retain the same convergence characteristics of the original analysis problem in the sensitivity analysis. These techniques are implemented in a three-dimensional unstructured multigrid NavierStokes solver, and demonstrated on a transonic drag reduction problem for a wing body configuration.

Adaptive mesh generation for viscous flows using delaunay triangulation

Abstract A method for generating an unstructured triangular mesh in two dimensions, suitable for computing high Reynolds number flows over arbitrary configurations is presented. The method is based on a Delaunay triangulation, which is perfored in a locally stretched space, in order to obtain very high-aspect-ratio tiangles in the boundary layer and wake regions. It is shown how the method can be coupled with an unstructured Navier-Stokes solver to produce a solution-adaptive mesh generation procedure for viscous flows.

Design and implementation of a parallel unstructured Euler solver using software primitives

We are concerned with the implementation of a three-dimensional unstructured-grid Euler solver on massively parallel distributed-memory computer architectures. The goal is to minimize solution time by achieving high computational rates with a numerically efficient algorithm. An unstructured multigrid algorithm with an edge-based data structure has been adopted, and a number of optimizations have been devised and implemented to accelerate the parallel computational rates. The implementation is carried out by creating a set of software tools, which provide an interface between the parallelization issues and the sequential code, while providing a basis for future automatic run-time compilation support

Adjoint-based h-p adaptive discontinuous Galerkin methods for the 2D compressible Euler equations

In this paper, we investigate and present an adaptive Discontinuous Galerkin algorithm driven by an adjoint-based error estimation technique for the inviscid compressible Euler equations. This approach requires the numerical approximations for the flow (i.e. primal) problem and the adjoint (i.e. dual) problem which corresponds to a particular simulation objective output of interest. The convergence of these two problems is accelerated by an hp-multigrid solver which makes use of an element Gauss-Seidel smoother on each level of the multigrid sequence. The error estimation of the output functional results in a spatial error distribution, which is used to drive an adaptive refinement strategy, which may include local mesh subdivision (h-refinement), local modification of discretization orders (p-enrichment) and the combination of both approaches known as hp-refinement. The selection between h- and p-refinement in the hp-adaptation approach is made based on a smoothness indicator applied to the most recently available flow solution values. Numerical results for the inviscid compressible flow over an idealized four-element airfoil geometry demonstrate that both pure h-refinement and pure p-enrichment algorithms achieve equivalent error reductions at each adaptation cycle compared to a uniform refinement approach, but requiring fewer degrees of freedom. The proposed hp-adaptive refinement strategy is capable of obtaining exponential error convergence in terms of degrees of freedom, and results in significant savings in computational cost. A high-speed flow test case is used to demonstrate the ability of the hp-refinement approach for capturing strong shocks or discontinuities while improving functional accuracy.

Directional Agglomeration Multigrid Techniques for High-Reynolds Number Viscous Flows

A preconditioned directional-implicit agglomeration algorithm is developed for solving two- and three-dimensional viscous flows on highly anisotropic unstructured meshes of mixed-element types. The multigrid smoother consists of a pre-conditioned point- or line-implicit solver which operates on lines constructed in the unstructured mesh using a weighted graph algorithm. Directional coarsening or agglomeration is achieved using a similar weighted graph algorithm. A tight coupling of the line construction and directional agglomeration algorithms enables the use of aggressive coarsening ratios in the multigrid algorithm, which in turn reduces the cost of a multigrid cycle. Convergence rates which are independent of the degree of grid stretching are demonstrated in both two and three dimensions. Further improvement of the three-dimensional convergence rates through a GMRES technique is also demonstrated.