Anderson-accelerated convergence of Picard iterations for incompressible Navier-Stokes equations

TL;DR

This paper introduces Anderson-accelerated Picard iterations for the steady Navier-Stokes equations, demonstrating improved convergence rates and the ability to achieve convergence where traditional methods fail, especially at high Reynolds numbers.

Contribution

It extends Anderson acceleration theory to steady Navier-Stokes equations and proves its effectiveness in improving convergence of Picard iterations.

Findings

Accelerates convergence of Picard iterations for NSE.

Enables convergence where traditional Picard and Newton methods fail.

Shows significant improvement at high Reynolds numbers.

Abstract

We propose, analyze and test Anderson-accelerated Picard iterations for solving the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations (NSE). Anderson acceleration has recently gained interest as a strategy to accelerate linear and nonlinear iterations, based on including an optimization step in each iteration. We extend the Anderson-acceleration theory to the steady NSE setting and prove that the acceleration improves the convergence rate of the Picard iteration based on the success of the underlying optimization problem. The convergence is demonstrated in several numerical tests, with particularly marked improvement in the higher Reynolds number regime. Our tests show it can be an enabling technology in the sense that it can provide convergence when both usual Picard and Newton iterations fail.