An overlapping Schwarz method for spectral element solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations (Q1360395)

This paper considers problems encountered in large-scale spectral element simulations of unsteady incompressible flows. An accurate simulation of even two-dimensional flows can require hundreds of thousands of grid points if the Reynolds number is of the order of \(10^4\). The author has developed an additive overlapping Schwarz preconditioner for the computationally challenging pressure operator which arises when an Uzawa decoupling procedure is applied to the \(P_N- P_{N-2}\) spectral element formulation of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. The pressure preconditioner is derived from local finite element Laplacians based on a triangulation of the Gauss (pressure) points, coupled with a global coarse grid operator of the spectral element vertices. The Schwarz procedure yields significantly improved convergence rates over previously employed deflation/block-Jacobi-based schemes. The overall Navier-Stokes solution times for several production runs have been reduced by a factor of 5 with the development of this preconditioner.