Advancing parabolic operators in thermodynamic MHD models II: Evaluating a Practical Time Step Limit for Unconditionally Stable Methods

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Caplan, Ronald M., Johnston, Craig D., Daldoff, Lars K. S., Linker, Jon A.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866914699588665344
author Caplan, Ronald M.
Johnston, Craig D.
Daldoff, Lars K. S.
Linker, Jon A.
author_facet Caplan, Ronald M.
Johnston, Craig D.
Daldoff, Lars K. S.
Linker, Jon A.
contents Unconditionally stable time stepping schemes are useful and often practically necessary for advancing parabolic operators in multi-scale systems. However, serious accuracy problems may emerge when taking time steps that far exceed the explicit stability limits. In our previous work, we compared the accuracy and performance of advancing parabolic operators in a thermodynamic MHD model using an implicit method and an explicit super time-stepping (STS) method. We found that while the STS method outperformed the implicit one with overall good results, it was not able to damp oscillatory behavior in the solution efficiently, hindering its practical use. In this follow-up work, we evaluate an easy-to-implement method for selecting a practical time step limit (PTL) for unconditionally stable schemes. This time step is used to `cycle' the operator-split thermal conduction and viscosity parabolic operators. We test the new time step with both an implicit and STS scheme for accuracy, performance, and scaling. We find that, for our test cases here, the PTL dramatically improves the STS solution, matching or improving the solution of the original implicit scheme, while retaining most of its performance and scaling advantages. The PTL shows promise to allow more accurate use of unconditionally stable schemes for parabolic operators and reliable use of STS methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_01004
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Advancing parabolic operators in thermodynamic MHD models II: Evaluating a Practical Time Step Limit for Unconditionally Stable Methods
Caplan, Ronald M.
Johnston, Craig D.
Daldoff, Lars K. S.
Linker, Jon A.
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Numerical Analysis
Computational Physics
Unconditionally stable time stepping schemes are useful and often practically necessary for advancing parabolic operators in multi-scale systems. However, serious accuracy problems may emerge when taking time steps that far exceed the explicit stability limits. In our previous work, we compared the accuracy and performance of advancing parabolic operators in a thermodynamic MHD model using an implicit method and an explicit super time-stepping (STS) method. We found that while the STS method outperformed the implicit one with overall good results, it was not able to damp oscillatory behavior in the solution efficiently, hindering its practical use. In this follow-up work, we evaluate an easy-to-implement method for selecting a practical time step limit (PTL) for unconditionally stable schemes. This time step is used to `cycle' the operator-split thermal conduction and viscosity parabolic operators. We test the new time step with both an implicit and STS scheme for accuracy, performance, and scaling. We find that, for our test cases here, the PTL dramatically improves the STS solution, matching or improving the solution of the original implicit scheme, while retaining most of its performance and scaling advantages. The PTL shows promise to allow more accurate use of unconditionally stable schemes for parabolic operators and reliable use of STS methods.
title Advancing parabolic operators in thermodynamic MHD models II: Evaluating a Practical Time Step Limit for Unconditionally Stable Methods
topic Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Numerical Analysis
Computational Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.01004