Stability analysis of the cell centered finite-volume MUSCL method on unstructured grids (Q1034692)

The authors study the application of the MUSCL scheme -- a cell-centered finite volume method originally proposed for hyperbolic conservation laws -- to the linear advection equation on general unstructured grids and to examine the eigenvalue stability of the linear semi-discrete equations resulting from the method of lines. It turns out that on unstructured three-dimensional grids instability may ensue. This motivates the investigation of the influence of the slope reconstruction method and stencil on the eigenvalue stability of the MUSCL scheme. The authors are able to identify a local property of the slope reconstruction that is strongly related to the appearance of unstable eigenmodes. This property allows to identify the reconstruction methods that are best suited for stable discretizations. Numerical examples computed for a large number of two- and three-dimensional test cases illustrate the theoretical analysis.