T. Warburton

A. Karakus, N. Chalmers, J. S. Hesthaven et al.

We present an efficient nodal discontinuous Galerkin method for approximating nearly incompressible flows using the Boltzmann equations. The equations are discretized with Hermite polynomials in velocity space yielding a first order conservation law. A stabilized unsplit perfectly matching layer (PML) formulation is introduced for the resulting nonlinear flow equations. The proposed PML equations exponentially absorb the difference between the nonlinear fluctuation and the prescribed mean flow. We introduce semi-analytic time discretization methods to improve the time step restrictions in small relaxation times. We also introduce a multirate semi-analytic Adams-Bashforth method which preserves efficiency in stiff regimes. Accuracy and performance of the method are tested using distinct cases including isothermal vortex, flow around square cylinder, and wall mounted square cylinder test cases.

Jesse Chan, Russell J. Hewett, T. Warburton

Time-domain discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods for wave propagation require accounting for the inversion of dense elemental mass matrices, where each mass matrix is computed with respect to a parameter-weighted L2 inner product. In applications where the wavespeed varies spatially at a sub-element scale, these matrices are distinct over each element, necessitating additional storage. In this work, we propose a weight-adjusted DG (WADG) method which reduces storage costs by replacing the weighted L2 inner product with a weight-adjusted inner product. This equivalent inner product results in an energy stable method, but does not increase storage costs for locally varying weights. A-priori error estimates are derived, and numerical examples are given illustrating the application of this method to the acoustic wave equation with heterogeneous wavespeed.

Jesse Chan, T. Warburton

Penalty fluxes are dissipative numerical fluxes for high order discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods which depend on a penalization parameter. We investigate the dependence of the spectra of high order DG discretizations on this parameter, and show that as its value increases, the spectra of the DG discretization splits into two disjoint sets of eigenvalues. One set converges to the eigenvalues of a conforming discretization, while the other set corresponds to spurious eigenvalues which are damped proportionally to the parameter. Numerical experiments also demonstrate that undamped spurious modes present in both in the limit of zero and large penalization parameters are damped for moderate values of the upwind parameter.

Jesse Chan, T. Warburton

Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods discretized under the method of lines must handle the inverse of a block diagonal mass matrix at each time step. Efficient implementations of the DG method hinge upon inexpensive and low-memory techniques for the inversion of each dense mass matrix block. We propose an efficient time-explicit DG method on meshes of pyramidal elements based on the construction of a semi-nodal high order basis, which is orthogonal for a class of transformations of the reference pyramid, despite the non-affine nature of the mapping. We give numerical results confirming both expected convergence rates and discuss efficiency of DG methods under such a basis.

Jesse Chan, Zheng Wang, Russell J. Hewett et al.

We present a high order time-domain nodal discontinuous Galerkin method for wave problems on hybrid meshes consisting of both wedge and tetrahedral elements. We allow for vertically mapped wedges which can be deformed along the extruded coordinate, and present a simple method for producing quasi-uniform wedge meshes for layered domains. We show that standard mass lumping techniques result in a loss of energy stability on meshes of vertically mapped wedges, and propose an alternative which is both energy stable and efficient. High order convergence is demonstrated, and comparisons are made with existing low-storage methods on wedges. Finally, the computational performance of the method on Graphics Processing Units is evaluated.

Andreas Klöckner, Lucas C. Wilcox, T. Warburton

To concisely and effectively demonstrate the capabilities of our program transformation system Loo.py, we examine a transformation path from two real-world Fortran subroutines as found in a weather model to a single high-performance computational kernel suitable for execution on modern GPU hardware. Along the transformation path, we encounter kernel fusion, vectorization, prefetch- ing, parallelization, and algorithmic changes achieved by mechanized conversion between imperative and functional/substitution- based code, among a number more. We conclude with performance results that demonstrate the effects and support the effectiveness of the applied transformations.

Jesse Chan, T. Warburton

We evaluate the computational performance of the Bernstein-Bezier basis for discontinuous Galerkin (DG) discretizations and show how to exploit properties of derivative and lift operators specific to Bernstein polynomials for an optimal complexity quadrature-free evaluation of the DG formulation. Issues of efficiency and numerical stability are discussed in the context of a model wave propagation problem. We compare the performance of Bernstein-Bezier kernels to both a straightforward and a block-partitioned implementation of nodal DG kernels in a time-explicit GPU-accelerated DG solver. Computational experiments confirm the advantage of Bernstein-Bezier DG kernels over both straightforward and block-partitioned nodal DG kernels at high orders of approximation.

Jesse Chan, Russell J. Hewett, T. Warburton

Traditional time-domain discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods result in large storage costs at high orders of approximation due to the storage of dense elemental matrices. In this work, we propose a weight-adjusted DG (WADG) methods for curvilinear meshes which reduce storage costs while retaining energy stability. A priori error estimates show that high order accuracy is preserved under sufficient conditions on the mesh, which are illustrated through convergence tests with different sequences of meshes. Numerical and computational experiments verify the accuracy and performance of WADG for a model problem on curved domains.

Jesse Chan, T. Warburton

We introduce a Bernstein-Bezier basis for the pyramid, whose restriction to the face reduces to the Bernstein-Bezier basis on the triangle or quadrilateral. The basis satisfies the standard positivity and partition of unity properties common to Bernstein polynomials, and spans the same space as non-polynomial pyramid bases in the literature.

Jesse Chan, Zheng Wang, Axel Modave et al.

We present a time-explicit discontinuous Galerkin (DG) solver for the time-domain acoustic wave equation on hybrid meshes containing vertex-mapped hexahedral, wedge, pyramidal and tetrahedral elements. Discretely energy-stable formulations are presented for both Gauss-Legendre and Gauss-Legendre-Lobatto (Spectral Element) nodal bases for the hexahedron. Stable timestep restrictions for hybrid meshes are derived by bounding the spectral radius of the DG operator using order-dependent constants in trace and Markov inequalities. Computational efficiency is achieved under a combination of element-specific kernels (including new quadrature-free operators for the pyramid), multi-rate timestepping, and acceleration using Graphics Processing Units.

J. -F. Remacle, R. Gandham, T. Warburton

This paper presents a spectral element finite element scheme that efficiently solves elliptic problems on unstructured hexahedral meshes. The discrete equations are solved using a matrix-free preconditioned conjugate gradient algorithm. An additive Schwartz two-scale preconditioner is employed that allows h-independence convergence. An extensible multi-threading programming API is used as a common kernel language that allows runtime selection of different computing devices (GPU and CPU) and different threading interfaces (CUDA, OpenCL and OpenMP). Performance tests demonstrate that problems with over 50 million degrees of freedom can be solved in a few seconds on an off-the-shelf GPU.

Jesse Chan, T. Warburton

The use of pyramid elements is crucial to the construction of efficient hex-dominant meshes. For conforming nodal finite element methods with mixed element types, it is advantageous for nodal distributions on the faces of the pyramid to match those on the faces and edges of hexahedra and tetrahedra. We adapt existing procedures for constructing optimized tetrahedral nodal sets for high order interpolation to the pyramid with constrained face nodes, including two generalizations of the explicit Warp and Blend construction of nodes on the tetrahedron.