We present an $rp$-adaptation strategy for high-fidelity simulation of compressible inviscid flows with shocks. The mesh resolution in regions of flow discontinuities is increased by using a variational optimiser to $r$-adapt the mesh and cluster deg
rees of freedom there. In regions of smooth flow, we locally increase or decrease the local resolution through increasing or decreasing the polynomial order of the elements, respectively. This dual approach allows us to take advantage of the strengths of both methods for best computational performance, thereby reducing the overall cost of the simulation. The adaptation workflow uses a sensor for both discontinuities and smooth regions that is cheap to calculate, but the framework is general and could be used in conjunction with other feature-based sensors or error estimators. We demonstrate this proof-of-concept using two geometries at transonic and supersonic flow regimes. The method has been implemented in the open-source spectral/$hp$ element framework $Nektar++$, and its dedicated high-order mesh generation tool $NekMesh$. The results show that the proposed $rp$-adaptation methodology is a reasonably cost-effective way of improving accuracy.
When time-dependent partial differential equations (PDEs) are solved numerically in a domain with curved boundary or on a curved surface, mesh error and geometric approximation error caused by the inaccurate location of vertices and other interior gr
id points, respectively, could be the main source of the inaccuracy and instability of the numerical solutions of PDEs. The role of these geometric errors in deteriorating the stability and particularly the conservation properties are largely unknown, which seems to necessitate very fine meshes especially to remove geometric approximation error. This paper aims to investigate the effect of geometric approximation error by using a high-order mesh with negligible geometric approximation error, even for high order polynomial of order p. To achieve this goal, the high-order mesh generator from CAD geometry called NekMesh is adapted for surface mesh generation in comparison to traditional meshes with non-negligible geometric approximation error. Two types of numerical tests are considered. Firstly, the accuracy of differential operators is compared for various p on a curved element of the sphere. Secondly, by applying the method of moving frames, four different time-dependent PDEs on the sphere are numerically solved to investigate the impact of geometric approximation error on the accuracy and conservation properties of high-order numerical schemes for PDEs on the sphere.
We describe an adaptive version of a method for generating valid naturally curved quadrilateral meshes. The method uses a guiding field, derived from the concept of a cross field, to create block decompositions of multiply connected two dimensional d
omains. The a priori curved quadrilateral blocks can be further split into a finer high-order mesh as needed. The guiding field is computed by a Laplace equation solver using a continuous Galerkin or discontinuous Galerkin spectral element formulation. This operation is aided by using $p$-adaptation to achieve faster convergence of the solution with respect to the computational cost. From the guiding field, irregular nodes and separatrices can be accurately located. A first version of the code is implemented in the open source spectral element framework Nektar++ and its dedicated high order mesh generation platform NekMesh.
We describe a high order technique to generate quadrilateral decompositions and meshes for complex two dimensional domains using spectral elements in a field guided procedure. Inspired by cross field methods, we never actually compute crosses. Instea
d, we compute a high order accurate guiding field using a continuous Galerkin (CG) or discontinuous Galerkin (DG) spectral element method to solve a Laplace equation for each of the field variables using the open source code Nektar++. The spectral method provides spectral convergence and sub-element resolution of the fields. The DG approximation allows meshing of corners that are not multiples of $pi/2$ in a discretization consistent manner, when needed. The high order field can then be exploited to accurately find irregular nodes, and can be accurately integrated using a high order separatrix integration method to avoid features like limit cycles. The result is a mesh with naturally curved quadrilateral elements that do not need to be curved a posteriori to eliminate invalid elements. The mesh generation procedure is implemented in the open source mesh generation program NekMesh.
A variational framework, initially developed for high-order mesh optimisation, is being extended for r-adaptation. The method is based on the minimisation of a functional of the mesh deformation. To achieve adaptation, elements of the initial mesh ar
e manipulated using metric tensors to obtain target elements. The nonlinear optimisation in turns adapts the final high-order mesh to best fit the description of the target elements by minimising the element distortion. Encouraging preliminary results prove that the method behaves well and can be used in the future for more extensive work which shall include the use of error indicators from CFD simulations.
