Adaptive Mesh Redistribution for Hyperbolic Conservation Laws

Abstract

An adaptive mesh redistribution method for efficient and accurate simulation of multi dimensional hyperbolic conservation laws is developed. The algorithm consists of two coupled steps; evolution of the governing PDE followed by a redistribution of the computational nodes. The second step, i.e. mesh redistribution is carried out at each time step iteratively with the primary aim of adapting the grid to the computed solution in order to maximize accuracy while minimizing the computational overheads. The governing hyperbolic conservation laws, originally defined on the physical domain, are transformed on to a simplified computational domain where the position of the nodes remains independent of time. The transformed governing hyperbolic equations are recast in a strong conservative form and are solved directly on the computational domain without the need for interpolation that is typically associated with standard mesh redistribution algorithms. Several standard test cases involving numerical solution of scalar and system of hyperbolic conservation laws in one and two dimensions are presented in order to demonstrate the accuracy and computational efficiency of the proposed technique.