A Parallel and Adaptive Mesh-Free Method for Discontinuous Coefficient Fields in Heterogeneous Porous Media

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Chawla, Kapil, Lee, Sanghyun, Shin, Yeonjong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Chawla, Kapil
Lee, Sanghyun
Shin, Yeonjong
author_facet Chawla, Kapil
Lee, Sanghyun
Shin, Yeonjong
contents Discontinuous coefficient fields arise in many computational physics problems and are often represented as cellwise constant data tied to a given spatial discretization. Such representations are inherently mesh-dependent, requiring interpolation or projection whenever they are transferred to a different discretization. In this work, we develop \emph{Parallel and Adaptive Mesh-Free Approximation (PAM)}, a mesh-independent framework that approximates discontinuous data by a continuous, closed-form function. The resulting approximation can be evaluated consistently across different geometries and numerical discretizations, while preserving sharp interface features. The proposed PAM framework employs radial basis functions (RBFs) to construct continuous approximations of discontinuous data. To accurately capture discontinuities, we incorporate Shepard-normalization, which stabilizes the approximation near sharp interfaces. The coefficients of the RBF expansion are determined via sparse regression, enabling automatic selection of the most relevant basis functions and promoting robust representations. In addition, we develop a novel adaptive refinement approach which further enriches the approximation in regions of rapid spatial variation. We provide a theoretical analysis showing that the proposed normalized RBF framework achieves arbitrarily small $L^1$ error in approximating discontinuous step functions. To enhance computational efficiency, the domain is partitioned into subdomains, and the reconstruction problem is solved independently on each subdomain in parallel. Numerical experiments demonstrate the accuracy, adaptivity, scalability, and downstream impact of the proposed method on Darcy flow simulations, including tests on heterogeneous permeability fields, mesh-transfer settings, and the SPE10 benchmark.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_16564
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Parallel and Adaptive Mesh-Free Method for Discontinuous Coefficient Fields in Heterogeneous Porous Media
Chawla, Kapil
Lee, Sanghyun
Shin, Yeonjong
Numerical Analysis
Discontinuous coefficient fields arise in many computational physics problems and are often represented as cellwise constant data tied to a given spatial discretization. Such representations are inherently mesh-dependent, requiring interpolation or projection whenever they are transferred to a different discretization. In this work, we develop \emph{Parallel and Adaptive Mesh-Free Approximation (PAM)}, a mesh-independent framework that approximates discontinuous data by a continuous, closed-form function. The resulting approximation can be evaluated consistently across different geometries and numerical discretizations, while preserving sharp interface features. The proposed PAM framework employs radial basis functions (RBFs) to construct continuous approximations of discontinuous data. To accurately capture discontinuities, we incorporate Shepard-normalization, which stabilizes the approximation near sharp interfaces. The coefficients of the RBF expansion are determined via sparse regression, enabling automatic selection of the most relevant basis functions and promoting robust representations. In addition, we develop a novel adaptive refinement approach which further enriches the approximation in regions of rapid spatial variation. We provide a theoretical analysis showing that the proposed normalized RBF framework achieves arbitrarily small $L^1$ error in approximating discontinuous step functions. To enhance computational efficiency, the domain is partitioned into subdomains, and the reconstruction problem is solved independently on each subdomain in parallel. Numerical experiments demonstrate the accuracy, adaptivity, scalability, and downstream impact of the proposed method on Darcy flow simulations, including tests on heterogeneous permeability fields, mesh-transfer settings, and the SPE10 benchmark.
title A Parallel and Adaptive Mesh-Free Method for Discontinuous Coefficient Fields in Heterogeneous Porous Media
topic Numerical Analysis
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.16564