Multigrid Solution for High-Order Discontinuous Galerkin Discretizations of the Compressible Navier-Stokes Equations

A high-order discontinuous Galerkin finite element discretization and p-multigrid solution procedure for the compressible Navier-Stokes equations are presented. The discretization has an element-compact stencil such that only elements sharing a face are coupled, regardless of the solution space. This limited coupling maximizes the effectiveness of the p-multigrid solver, which relies on an element-line Jacobi smoother. The element-line Jacobi smoother solves implicitly on lines of elements formed based on the coupling between elements in a p = 0 discretization of the scalar transport equation. Fourier analysis of 2-D scalar convection-diffusion shows that the element-line Jacobi smoother as well as the simpler element Jacobi smoother are stable independent of p and flow condition. Mesh refinement studies for simple problems with analytic solutions demonstrate that the discretization achieves optimal order of accuracy of O(hp+1). A subsonic, airfoil test case shows that the multigrid convergence rate is independent of p but weakly dependent on h. Finally, higher-order is shown to outperform grid refinement in terms of the time required to reach a desired accuracy level. Thesis Supervisor: David L. Darmofal Title: Associate Professor