An efficient hp-adaptive strategy for a level-set ghost-fluid method

Abstract

We present an hp-adaptive discretization for a sharp interface model with a level-set ghost-fluid method to simulate compressible multiphase flows. The scheme applies an efficient p-adaptive discontinuous Galerkin (DG) operator in regions of smooth flow. Shocks and the phase interface are captured by a Finite Volume (FV) scheme on a h-refined element-local sub-grid. The resulting hp-adaptive scheme thus combines both the high order accuracy of the DG method and the robustness of the FV scheme by using p-adaptation in smooth areas and h-refinement at discontinuities, respectively. For the level-set based interface tracking, a similar hybrid DG/FV operator is employed. Both p-refinement and FV shock and interface capturing are performed at runtime and controlled by an indicator, which is based on the modal decay of the solution polynomials. In parallel simulations, the hp-adaptive discretization together with the costly interface tracking algorithm cause a significant imbalance in the processor workloads. To ensure parallel efficiency, we propose a dynamic load balancing scheme that determines the workload distribution by element-local wall time measurements and redistributes elements along a space filling curve. The parallelization strategy is supported by strong scaling tests using up to 8192 cores. The framework is applied to established benchmarks problems for inviscid, compressible multiphase flows. The results demonstrate that the hybrid adaptive discretization can efficiently and accurately handle complex multiphase flow problems involving pronounced interface deformations and merging interface contours.