We present a finite volume based cell-centered method for solving diffusion equations on three-dimensional unstructured grids with general tensor conduction. Our main motivation concerns the numerical simulation of the coupling between fluid flows and heat transfers. The corresponding numerical scheme is characterized by cell-centered unknowns and a local stencil. Namely, the scheme results in a global sparse diffusion matrix, which couples only the cell-centered unknowns. The space discretization relies on the partition of polyhedral cells into sub-cells and on the partition of cell faces into sub-faces. It is characterized by the introduction of sub-face normal fluxes and sub-face temperatures, which are auxiliary unknowns. A sub-cellbased variational formulation of the constitutive Fourier law allows to construct an explicit approximation of the sub-face normal heat fluxes in terms of the cell-centered temperature and the adjacent sub-face temperatures. The elimination of the sub-face temperatures with respect to the cell-centered temperatures is achieved locally at each node by solving a small and sparse linear system. This systemis obtained by enforcing the continuity condition of the normal heat flux across each sub-cell interface impinging at the node under consideration. The parallel implementation of the numerical algorithm and its efficiency are described and analyzed. The accuracy and the robustness of the proposed finite volumemethod are assessed bymeans of various numerical test cases.

The implicit 2D3V particle-in-cell (PIC) code developed to study the interaction of ultrashort pulse lasers with matter [G. M. Petrov and J. Davis, Computer Phys. Comm. 179, 868 (2008); Phys. Plasmas 18, 073102 (2011)] has been parallelized using MPI (Message Passing Interface). The parallelization strategy is optimized for a small number of computer cores, up to about 64. Details on the algorithm implementation are given with emphasis on code optimization by overlapping computations with communications. Performance evaluation for 1D domain decomposition has been made on a small Linux cluster with 64 computer cores for two typical regimes of PIC operation: “particle dominated”, for which the bulk of the computation time is spent on pushing particles, and “field dominated”, for which computing the fields is prevalent. For a small number of computer cores, less than 32, the MPI implementation offers a significant numerical speed-up. In the “particle dominated” regime it is close to the maximum theoretical one, while in the “field dominated” regime it is about 75-80 % of the maximum speed-up. For a number of cores exceeding 32, performance degradation takes place as a result of the adopted 1D domain decomposition. The code parallelization will allow future implementation of atomic physics and extension to three dimensions.

This paper introduces a unified concept and algorithm for the fractional-step (FS), artificial compressibility (AC) and pressure-projection (PP) methods for solving the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. The proposed FSAC-PP approach falls into the group of pseudo-time splitting high-resolution methods incorporating the characteristics-based (CB) Godunov-type treatment of convective terms with PP methods. Due to the fact that the CB Godunov-type methods are applicable directly to the hyperbolic AC formulation and not to the elliptical FS-PP (split) methods, thus the straightforward coupling of CB Godunov-type schemes with PP methods is not possible. Therefore, the proposed FSAC-PP approach unifies the fully-explicit AC and semi-implicit FS-PP methods of Chorin including a PP step in the dual-time stepping procedure to a) overcome the numerical stiffness of the classical AC approach at (very) low and moderate Reynolds numbers, b) incorporate the accuracy and convergence properties of CB Godunov-type schemes with PP methods, and c) further improve the stability and efficiency of the AC method for steady and unsteady flow problems. The FSAC-PPmethod has also been coupled with a non-linear, full-multigrid and fullapproximation storage (FMG-FAS) technique to further increase the efficiency of the solution. For validating the proposed FSAC-PP method, computational examples are presented for benchmark problems. The overall results show that the unified FSAC-PP approach is an efficient algorithm for solving incompressible flow problems.

Various works from the literature aimed at accelerating Bayesian inference in inverse problems. Stochastic spectral methods have been recently proposed as surrogate approximations of the forward uncertainty propagation model over the support of the prior distribution. These representations are efficient because they allow affordable simulation of a large number of samples from the posterior distribution. Unfortunately, they do not perform well when the forward model exhibits strong nonlinear behavior with respect to its input.

In this work, we first relate the fast (exponential) L2-convergence of the forward approximation to the fast (exponential) convergence (in terms of Kullback-Leibler divergence) of the approximate posterior. In particular, we prove that in case the prior distribution is uniform, the posterior is at least twice as fast as the convergence rate of the forwardmodel in those norms. The Bayesian inference strategy is developed in the framework of a stochastic spectral projectionmethod. The predicted convergence rates are then demonstrated for simple nonlinear inverse problems of varying smoothness.

We then propose an efficient numerical approach for the Bayesian solution of inverse problems presenting strongly nonlinear or discontinuous systemresponses. This comes with the improvement of the forward model that is adaptively approximated by an iterative generalized Polynomial Chaos-based representation. The numerical approximations and predicted convergence rates of the former approach are compared to the new iterative numericalmethod for nonlinear time-dependent test cases of varying dimension and complexity, which are relevant regarding our hydrodynamics motivations and therefore regarding hyperbolic conservation laws and the apparition of discontinuities in finite time.

In this paper we present a method to generate independent samples for a general random variable, either continuous or discrete. The algorithm is an extension of the Acceptance-Rejection method, and it is particularly useful for kinetic simulation in which the rates are fluctuating in time and have singular limits, as occurs for example in simulation of recombination interactions in a plasma. Although it depends on some additional requirements, the new method is easy to implement and rejects less samples than the Acceptance-Rejection method.

We present new large time step methods for the shallow water flows in the low Froude number limit. In order to take into account multiscale phenomena that typically appear in geophysical flows nonlinear fluxes are split into a linear part governing the gravitational waves and the nonlinear advection. We propose to approximate fast linear waves implicitly in time and in space by means of a genuinely multidimensional evolution operator. On the other hand, we approximate nonlinear advection part explicitly in time and in space by means of the method of characteristics or some standard numerical flux function. Time integration is realized by the implicit-explicit (IMEX) method. We apply the IMEX Euler scheme, two step Runge Kutta Cranck Nicolson scheme, as well as the semi-implicit BDF scheme and prove their asymptotic preserving property in the low Froude number limit. Numerical experiments demonstrate stability, accuracy and robustness of these new large time step finite volume schemes with respect to small Froude number.

The solution of systems of hyperbolic conservation laws remains an interesting and challenging task due to the diversity of physical origins and complexity of the physical situations. The present work introduces the use of the partial differential equation (PDE) transform, paired with the Fourier pseudospectral method (FPM), as a new approach for hyperbolic conservation law problems. The PDE transform, based on the scheme of adaptive high order evolution PDEs, has recently been applied to decompose signals, images, surfaces and data to various target functional mode functions such as trend, edge, texture, feature, trait, noise, etc. Like wavelet transform, the PDE transform has controllable time-frequency localization and perfect reconstruction. A fast PDE transform implemented by the fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is introduced to avoid stability constraint of integrating high order PDEs. The parameters of the PDE transform are adaptively computed to optimize the weighted total variation during the time integration of conservation law equations. A variety of standard benchmark problems of hyperbolic conservation laws is employed to systematically validate the performance of the present PDE transform based FPM. The impact of two PDE transform parameters, i.e., the highest order and the propagation time, is carefully studied to deliver the best effect of suppressing Gibbs’ oscillations. The PDE orders of 2-6 are used for hyperbolic conservation laws of low oscillatory solutions, while the PDE orders of 8-12 are often required for problems involving highly oscillatory solutions, such as shock-entropy wave interactions. The present results are compared with those in the literature. It is found that the present approach not only works well for problems that favor low order shock capturing schemes, but also exhibits superb behavior for problems that require the use of high order shock capturing methods.

In this paper, we derive a multi-symplectic Fourier pseudospectral scheme for the Kawahara equation with special attention to the relationship between the spectral differentiation matrix and discrete Fourier transform. The relationship is crucial for implementing the scheme efficiently. By using the relationship, we can apply the Fast Fourier transform to solve the Kawahara equation. The effectiveness of the proposed methods will be demonstrated by a number of numerical examples. The numerical results also confirm that the global energy and momentum are well preserved.

Plasma radiative properties play a pivotal role both in nuclear fusion and astrophysics. They are essential to analyze and explain experiments or observations and also in radiative-hydrodynamics simulations. Their computation requires the generation of large atomic databases and the calculation, by solving a set of rate equations, of a huge number of atomic level populations in wide ranges of plasma conditions. These facts make that, for example, radiative-hydrodynamics in-line simulations be almost infeasible. This has lead to develop analytical expressions based on the parametrization of radiative properties. However, most of them are accurate only for coronal or local thermodynamic equilibrium. In this work we present a code for the parametrization of plasma radiative properties of mono-component plasmas, in terms of plasma density and temperature, such as radiative power loss, the Planck and Rosseland mean opacities and the average ionization, which is valid for steady-state optically thin plasmas in wide ranges of plasma densities and temperatures. Furthermore, we also present some applications of this parametrization such as the analysis of the optical depth and radiative character of plasmas, the use to perform diagnostics of the electron temperature, the determination of mean radiative properties for multicomponent plasmas and the analysis of radiative cooling instabilities in some kind of experiments on high-energy density laboratory astrophysics. Finally, to ease the use of the code for the parametrization, this one has been integrated in a user interface and brief comments about it are presented.

In the current study, a two-dimensional multi-relaxation time (MRT) lattice Boltzmann model which can tolerate high density ratios and low viscosity is employed to simulate the liquid droplet impact onto a curved target. The temporal variation of the film thickness at the north pole of the target surface is investigated. Three different temporal phases of the dynamics behavior, namely, the initial drop deformation phase, the inertia dominated phase and the viscosity dominated phase are reproduced and studied. The effect of the Reynolds number, Weber number and Galilei number on the film flow dynamics is investigated. In addition, the dynamic behavior of the droplet impact onto the side of the curved target is shown, and the effect of the contact angle, the Reynolds number and the Weber number are investigated.

The formation of singularities in relativistic flows is not well understood. Smooth solutions to the relativistic Euler equations are known to have a finite lifespan; the possible breakdown mechanisms are shock formation, violation of the subluminal conditions and mass concentration. We propose a new hybrid Glimm/central-upwind scheme for relativistic flows. The scheme is used to numerically investigate, for a family of problems, which of the above mechanisms is involved.

Red blood cells undergo substantial shape changes in vivo. Modeled as a viscoelastic capsule, their deformation and equilibrium behavior has been extensively studied. We consider how 2D capsules recover their shape, after having been deformed to ‘equilibrium’ behavior by shear flow. The fluid-structure interaction is modeled using the multiple-relaxation time lattice Boltzmann (LBM) and immersed boundary (IBM) methods. Characterizing the capsule’s shape recovery with the Taylor deformation parameter, we find that a single exponential decay model suffices to describe the recovery of a circular capsule. However, for biconcave capsules whose equilibrium behaviors are tank-treading and tumbling, we posit a two-part recovery, modeled with a pair of exponential decay functions. We consider how these two recovery modes depend on the capsule’s shear elasticity, membrane viscosity, and bending stiffness, along with the ratio of the viscosity of the fluid inside the capsule to the ambient fluid viscosity. We find that the initial recovery mode for a tank-treading biconcave capsule is dominated by shear elasticity and membrane viscosity. On the other hand, the latter recovery mode for both tumbling and tank-treading capsules, depends clearly on shear elasticity, bending stiffness, and the viscosity ratio.

We develop a super-grid modeling technique for solving the elastic wave equation in semi-bounded two- and three-dimensional spatial domains. In this method, waves are slowed down and dissipated in sponge layers near the far-field boundaries. Mathematically, this is equivalent to a coordinate mapping that transforms a very large physical domain to a significantly smaller computational domain, where the elastic wave equation is solved numerically on a regular grid. To damp out waves that become poorly resolved because of the coordinate mapping, a high order artificial dissipation operator is added in layers near the boundaries of the computational domain. We prove by energy estimates that the super-grid modeling leads to a stable numerical method with decreasing energy, which is valid for heterogeneous material properties and a free surface boundary condition on one side of the domain. Our spatial discretization is based on a fourth order accurate finite difference method, which satisfies the principle of summation by parts. We show that the discrete energy estimate holds also when a centered finite difference stencil is combined with homogeneous Dirichlet conditions at several ghost points outside of the far-field boundaries. Therefore, the coefficients in the finite difference stencils need only be boundary modified near the free surface. This allows for improved computational efficiency and significant simplifications of the implementation of the proposed method in multi-dimensional domains. Numerical experiments in three space dimensions show that the modeling error from truncating the domain can be made very small by choosing a sufficiently wide super-grid damping layer. The numerical accuracy is first evaluated against analytical solutions of Lamb’s problem, where fourth order accuracy is observed with a sixth order artificial dissipation. We then use successive grid refinements to study the numerical accuracy in the more complicated motion due to a point moment tensor source in a regularized layered material.

We present a new splitting method for time-dependent convention-dominated diffusion problems. The original convention diffusion system is split into two sub-systems: a pure convection system and a diffusion system. At each time step, a convection problem and a diffusion problem are solved successively. A few important features of the scheme lie in the facts that the convection subproblem is solved explicitly and multistep techniques can be used to essentially enlarge the stability region so that the resulting scheme behaves like an unconditionally stable scheme; while the diffusion subproblem is always self-adjoint and coercive so that they can be solved efficiently using many existing optimal preconditioned iterative solvers. The scheme can be extended for solving the Navier-Stokes equations, where the nonlinearity is resolved by a linear explicit multistep scheme at the convection step, while only a generalized Stokes problem is needed to solve at the diffusion step and the major stiffness matrix stays invariant in the time marching process. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the stability, convergence and performance of the single-step and multistep variants of the new scheme.

Several recently developed AUSM-family numerical flux functions (SLAU, SLAU2, AUSMM+-up2, and AUSMPW+) have been successfully extended to compute compressible multiphase flows, based on the stratified flow model concept, by following two previous works: one by M.-S. Liou, C.-H. Chang, L. Nguyen, and T.G. Theofanous [AIAA J. 46:2345-2356, 2008], in which AUSM+-up was used entirely, and the other by C.-H. Chang, and M.-S. Liou [J. Comput. Phys. 225:840-873, 2007], in which the exact Riemann solver was combined into AUSM+-up at the phase interface. Through an extensive survey by comparing flux functions, the following are found: (1) AUSM+-up with dissipation parameters of Kp and Ku equal to 0.5 or greater, AUSMPW+, SLAU2, AUSM+-up2, and SLAU can be used to solve benchmark problems, including a shock/water-droplet interaction; (2) SLAU shows oscillatory behaviors [though not as catastrophic as those of AUSM+ (a special case of AUSM+-up with Kp = Ku = 0)] due to insufficient dissipation arising from its ideal-gas-based dissipation term; and (3) when combined with the exact Riemann solver, AUSM+-up (Kp = Ku = 1), SLAU2, and AUSMPW+ are applicable to more challenging problems with high pressure ratios.

In this work the previously developed Lattice Boltzmann-Direct Forcing/ Fictitious Domain (LB-DF/FD) method is adopted to simulate the sedimentation of eight circular particles under gravity at an intermediate Reynolds number of about 248. The particle clustering and the resulting Drafting-Kissing-Tumbling (DKT) motion which takes place for the first time are explored. The effects of initial particle-particle gap on the DKT motion are found significant. In addition, the trajectories of particles are presented under different initial particle-particle gaps, which display totally three kinds of falling patterns provided that no DKT motion takes place, i.e. the concave-down shape, the shape of letter “M” and “in-line” shape. Furthermore, the lateral and vertical hydrodynamic forces on the particles are investigated. It has been found that the value of Strouhal number for all particles is the same which is about 0.157 when initial particle-particle gap is relatively large. The wall effects on falling patterns and particle expansions are examined in the final.

We investigate several robust preconditioners for solving the saddle-point linear systems that arise from spatial discretization of unsteady and steady variable-coefficient Stokes equations on a uniform staggered grid. Building on the success of using the classical projection method as a preconditioner for the coupled velocity pressure system [B. E. Griffith, J. Comp. Phys., 228 (2009), pp. 7565-7595], as well; established techniques for steady and unsteady Stokes flow in the finite-element literature, we construct preconditioners that employ independent generalized Helmholtz and Poisson solvers for the velocity and pressure subproblems. We demonstrate that only a single cycle of a standard geometric multigrid algorithm serves as an effective inexact solver for each of these subproblems. Contrary to traditional wisdom, we find that the Stokes problem can be solved nearly as efficiently as the independent pressure and velocity subproblems, making the overall cost of solving the Stokes system comparable to the cost of classical projection or fractional step methods for incompressible flow, even for steady flow and in the presence of large density and viscosity contrasts. Two of the five preconditioners considered here are found to be robust to GMRES restarts and to increasing problem size, making them suitable for large-scale problems. Our work opens many possibilities for constructing novel unsplit temporal integrators for finite-volume spatial discretizations of the equations of low Mach and incompressible flow dynamics.

The solution of complex rarefied flows with the BGK equation and the Discrete Velocity Method (DVM) requires a large number of velocity grid points leading to significant computational costs. We propose an adaptive velocity grid approach exploiting the fact that locally in space, the distribution function is supported only by a sub-set of the global velocity grid. The velocity grid is adapted thanks to criteria based on local temperature, velocity and on the enforcement of mass conservation. Simulations in 1D and 2D are presented for different Knudsen numbers and compared to a global velocity grid BGK solution, showing the computational gain of the proposed approach.

A new representation of spatio-temporal random processes is proposed in this work. In practical applications, such processes are used to model velocity fields, temperature distributions, response of vibrating systems, to name a few. Finding an efficient representation for any random process leads to encapsulation of information which makes it more convenient for a practical implementations, for instance, in a computational mechanics problem. For a single-parameter process such as spatial or temporal process, the eigenvalue decomposition of the covariance matrix leads to the well-known Karhunen-Loève (KL) decomposition. However, for multiparameter processes such as a spatio-temporal process, the covariance function itself can be defined in multiple ways. Here the process is assumed to be measured at a finite set of spatial locations and a finite number of time instants. Then the spatial covariance matrix at different time instants are considered to define the covariance of the process. This set of square, symmetric, positive semi-definite matrices is then represented as a third-order tensor. A suitable decomposition of this tensor can identify the dominant components of the process, and these components are then used to define a closed-form representation of the process. The procedure is analogous to the KL decomposition for a single-parameter process, however, the decompositions and interpretations vary significantly. The tensor decompositions are successfully applied on (i) a heat conduction problem, (ii) a vibration problem, and (iii) a covariance function taken from the literature that was fitted to model a measured wind velocity data. It is observed that the proposed representation provides an efficient approximation to some processes. Furthermore, a comparison with KL decomposition showed that the proposed method is computationally cheaper than the KL, both in terms of computer memory and execution time.

In this work, we concern with the numerical comparison between different kinds of design points in least square (LS) approach on polynomial spaces. Such a topic is motivated by uncertainty quantification (UQ). Three kinds of design points are considered, which are the Sparse Grid (SG) points, the Monte Carlo (MC) points and the Quasi Monte Carlo (QMC) points. We focus on three aspects during the comparison: (i) the convergence properties; (ii) the stability, i.e. the properties of the resulting condition number of the design matrix; (iii) the robustness when numerical noises are present in function values. Several classical high dimensional functions together with a random ODE model are tested. It is shown numerically that (i) neither the MC sampling nor the QMC sampling introduce the low convergence rate, namely, the approach achieves high order convergence rate for all cases provided that the underlying functions admit certain regularity and enough design points are used; (ii)The use of SG points admits better convergence properties only for very low dimensional problems (say d ≤ 2); (iii)The QMC points, being deterministic, seem to be a good choice for higher dimensional problems not only for better convergence properties but also in the stability point of view.