Pieter D. Boom

Pieter D. Boom, David W. Zingg

This article extends the theory of classical finite-difference summation-by-parts (FD-SBP) time-marching methods to the generalized summation-by-parts (GSBP) framework. Dual-consistent GSBP time-marching methods are shown to retain: A and L-stability, as well as superconvergence of integral functionals when integrated with the quadrature associated with the discretization. This also implies that the solution approximated at the end of each time step is superconvergent. In addition GSBP time-marching methods constructed with a diagonal norm are BN-stable. This article also formalizes the connection between FD-SBP/GSBP time-marching methods and implicit Runge-Kutta methods. Through this connection, the minimum accuracy of the solution approximated at the end of a time step is extended for nonlinear problems. It is also exploited to derive conditions under which nonlinearly stable GSBP time-marching methods can be constructed. The GSBP approach to time marching can simplify the construction of high-order fully-implicit Runge-Kutta methods with a particular set of properties favourable for stiff initial value problems, such as L-stability. It can facilitate the analysis of fully discrete approximations to PDEs and is amenable to to multi-dimensional spcae-time discretizations, in which case the explicit connection to Runge-Kutta methods is often lost. A few examples of known and novel Runge-Kutta methods associated with GSBP operators are presented. The novel methods, all of which are L-stable and BN-stable, include a four-stage seventh-order fully-implicit method, a three-stage third-order diagonally-implicit method, and a fourth-order four-stage diagonally-implicit method. The relative efficiency of the schemes is investigated and compared with a few popular non-GSBP Runge-Kutta methods.

Pieter D. Boom, David W. Zingg

This article extends the theory of dual-consistent summation-by-parts (SBP) and generalized SBP (GSBP) time-marching methods by showing that they are implicit Runge-Kutta schemes. Through this connection, the accuracy theory for the pointwise solution, as well as the solution projected to the end of each time step, is extended for nonlinear problems. Furthermore, it is shown that these minimum guaranteed order results can be superseded by leveraging the full nonlinear order conditions of Runge-Kutta methods. The connection to Runge-Kutta methods is also exploited to derive conditions under which SBP and GSBP time-marching methods associated with dense norms are nonlinearly stable. A few known and novel Runge-Kutta methods with associated GSBP operators are presented. The novel methods, all of which are L-stable and algebraically-stable, include a four-stage seventh-order fully-implicit method, a three-stage third-order diagonally-implicit method, and a fourth-order four-stage diagonally-implicit method.

Pieter D. Boom, Ashley Seepujak, Odysseas Kosmas et al.

A formulation of elliptic boundary value problems is used to develop the first discrete exterior calculus (DEC) library for massively parallel computations with 3D domains. This can be used for steady-state analysis of any physical process driven by the gradient of a scalar quantity, e.g. temperature, concentration, pressure or electric potential, and is easily extendable to transient analysis. In addition to offering this library to the community, we demonstrate one important benefit from the DEC formulation: effortless introduction of strong heterogeneities and discontinuities. These are typical for real materials, but challenging for widely used domain discretization schemes, such as finite elements. Specifically, we demonstrate the efficiency of the method for calculating the evolution of thermal conductivity of a solid with a growing crack population. Future development of the library will deal with transient problems, and more importantly with processes driven by gradients of vector quantities.