Unstructured spectral element methods for simulation of turbulent flows (Q1908722)

We present a spectral element-Fourier algorithm for simulating incompressible turbulent flows in complex geometries using unstructured quadrilateral meshes. To this end, we compare two different interface formulations for extending the conforming spectral element method in order to allow for surgical mesh refinement and still retain spectral accuracy: the Zanolli iterative procedure and variational patching based on auxiliary ``mortar'' functions. We present an interpretation of the original mortar element method as a patching scheme and develop direct and iterative solution techniques that make the method efficient for simulations of turbulent flows.