Analysis of variable-step/non-autonomous artificial compression methods

TL;DR

This paper develops a stable variable-step artificial compression method for incompressible flow, proving convergence to Navier-Stokes solutions and validating it with numerical tests in 2D and 3D.

Contribution

It introduces a provably stable variable-step artificial compression method and proves its convergence to weak solutions of Navier-Stokes equations.

Findings

The method is stable for variable timestep and compression parameters.

Convergence to weak solutions of Navier-Stokes as epsilon approaches zero.

Numerical tests confirm the method's effectiveness in 2D and 3D.

Abstract

A standard artificial compression (AC) method for incompressible flow is $$ \frac{u_{n+1}^{\varepsilon }-u_{n}^{\varepsilon }}{k}+u_{n+1}^{\varepsilon }\cdot \nabla u_{n+1}^{\varepsilon }+{\frac{1}{2}}u_{n+1}^{\varepsilon }\nabla \cdot u_{n+1}^{\varepsilon }+\nabla p_{n+1}^{\varepsilon }-\nu \Delta u_{n+1}^{\varepsilon }=f\text{ ,} \\ \varepsilon \frac{p_{n+1}^{\varepsilon }-p_{n}^{\varepsilon }}{k} +\nabla \cdot u_{n+1}^{\varepsilon }=0 $$ for, typically, $\varepsilon =k$ (timestep). It is fast, efficient and stable with accuracy $O(\varepsilon +k)$. For adaptive (and thus variable) timestep $k_{n}$ (and thus $\varepsilon =\varepsilon _{n}$) its long time stability is unknown. For variable $k,\varepsilon $ this report shows how to adapt a standard AC method to recover a provably stable method. For the associated continuum AC model, we prove convergence of the $\varepsilon =\varepsilon (t)$\ artificial compression model to a weak solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations as $\varepsilon =\varepsilon (t)\rightarrow 0$. The analysis is based on space-time Strichartz estimates for a non-autonomous acoustic equation. Variable $\varepsilon ,k$ numerical tests in $2d$ and $3d$ are given for the new AC method.