David A. Kopriva’s research while affiliated with San Diego State University and other places

We derive global estimates for the error in solutions of linear hyperbolic systems due to inaccurate boundary geometry. We show that the error is bounded by data and bounded in time when the solutions in the true and approximate domains are bounded. We show that boundary data evaluation errors due to the incorrect locations of the boundaries are secondary effects, whereas the primary errors are from the Jacobian and metric terms. In two space dimensions, specifically, we show that to lowest order the errors are proportional to the errors in the boundary curves and their derivatives. The results illustrate the importance of accurately approximating boundaries, and they should be helpful for high-order mesh generation and the design of optimization algorithms for boundary approximations.

HOHQMesh generates unstructured all-quadrilateral and hexahedral meshes with high order boundary information for use with spectral element solvers. Model input by the user requires only an optional outer boundary curve plus any number of inner boundary curves that are built as chains of simple geometric entities (lines and circles), user defined equations, and cubic splines. Inner boundary curves can be designated as interface boundaries to force element edges along them. Quadrilateral meshes are generated automatically with the mesh sizes guided by a background grid and the model, without additional input by the user. Hexahedral meshes are generated by extrusions of a quadrilateral mesh, including sweeping along a curve, and can follow bottom topography. The mesh files that HOHQMesh generates include high order polynomial interpolation points of arbitrary order

Free-stream preservation is an essential property for numerical solvers on curvilinear grids. Key to this property is that the metric terms of the curvilinear mapping satisfy discrete metric identities, i.e., have zero divergence. Divergence-free metric terms are furthermore essential for entropy stability on curvilinear grids. We present a new way to compute the metric terms for discontinuous Galerkin spectral element methods (DGSEMs) that guarantees they are divergence-free. Our proposed mimetic approach uses projections that fit within the de Rham Cohomology.

We show that even though the Discontinuous Galerkin Spectral Element Method is stable for hyperbolic boundary-value problems, and the overset domain problem is well-posed in an appropriate norm, the energy of the approximation of the latter is bounded by data only for fixed polynomial order, mesh, and time. In the absence of dissipation, coupling of the overlapping domains is destabilizing by allowing positive eigenvalues in the system to be integrated in time. This coupling can be stabilized in one space dimension by using the upwind numerical flux. To help provide additional dissipation, we introduce a novel penalty method that applies dissipation at arbitrary points within the overlap region and depends only on the difference between the solutions. We present numerical experiments in one space dimension to illustrate the implementation of the well-posed penalty formulation, and show spectral convergence of the approximations when sufficient dissipation is applied

A discrete analysis of the phase and dissipation errors of an explicit, semi-Lagrangian spectral element method is performed. The semi-Lagrangian method advects the Lagrange interpolant according the Lagrangian form of the transport equations and uses a least-square fit to correct the update for interface constraints of neighbouring elements. By assuming a monomial representation instead of the Lagrange form, a discrete version of the algorithm on a single element is derived. The resulting algebraic system lends itself to both a Modified Equation analysis and an eigenvalue analysis. The Modified Equation analysis, which Taylor expands the stencil at a single space location and time instance, shows that the semi-Lagrangian method is consistent with the PDE form of the transport equation in the limit that the element size goes to zero. The leading order truncation term of the Modified Equation is of the order of the degree of the interpolant which is consistent with numerical tests reported in the literature. The dispersion relations show that the method is negligibly dispersive, as is common for semi-Lagrangian methods. An eigenvalue analysis shows that the semi-Lagrangian method with a nodal Chebyshev interpolant is stable for a Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy condition based on the minimum collocation node spacing within an element that is greater than unity.

We derive entropy conserving and entropy dissipative overlapping domain formulations for systems of nonlinear hyperbolic equations in conservation form, such as would be approximated by overset mesh methods. The entropy conserving formulation imposes a two-way coupling at the artificial interface boundaries through nonlinear penalty functions that vanish when the solutions coincide. The penalty functions are expressed in terms of entropy conserving fluxes originally introduced for finite volume schemes. In addition to the interface coupling, which is required, entropy dissipation and coupling can optionally be added through the use of linear penalties within the overlap region.

We present the latest developments of our High-Order Spectral Element Solver (HORSES3D), an open source high-order discontinuous Galerkin framework, capable of solving a variety of flow applications, including compressible flows (with or without shocks), incompressible flows, various RANS and LES turbulence models, particle dynamics, multiphase flows, and aeroacoustics. We provide an overview of the high-order spatial discretisation (including energy/entropy stable schemes) and anisotropic p-adaptation capabilities. The solver is parallelised using MPI and OpenMP showing good scalability for up to 1000 processors. Temporal discretisations include explicit, implicit, multigrid, and dual time-stepping schemes with efficient preconditioners. Additionally, we facilitate meshing and simulating complex geometries through a mesh-free immersed boundary technique. We detail the available documentation and the test cases included in the GitHub repository.