Comparison of Nonlinear and Linear Stabilization Schemes for Advection-Diffusion Equations

Abstract:

Accurately solving advection-diffusion equations that appear in the finite element discretization of a mantle convection simulation is an important computational issue to the computational geoscience community. This is because it allows for users studying mantle convection to create reliable simulations for something as small and simple as a 2D simulation on their personal laptop to something as complex as a massively parallel 3D simulation on their university supercomputer. Standard finite element discretizations of advection-diffusion equations introduce unphysical oscillations around steep gradients. Therefore, stabilization must be added to the discrete formulation to obtain correct solutions. Using the open source scientific library ASPECT, the SUPG and Entropy Viscosity schemes are compared using stationary and non-stationary test equations. Differences in maximum overshoot and undershoot, smear, and convergence orders are compared to see if improvements can be made to the existing numerical method existing in ASPECT.