Solver methods

The flow solver uses iterative Krylov methods, to solve large set of algebraic equations resulting from the discrete approximation of differential equations.

Krylov subspace methods [46] work by forming a basis of the sequence of successive matrix powers A times the initial residual r, the Krylov sequence with iteration number m:

The approximations to the solution are then formed by reducing the residual over the subspace formed by the Krylov methods.

The flow solver uses an adaptive multi-methods for efficient solver selection, where the linear solver method is selected dynamically by observing linear system properties as they evolve during the simulation process. Selection of an appropriate solver can lead to benefits such as reduced memory requirement, lower execution time and reliability.

The dynamic linear solver can use four Krylov methods:

  • BiCGStab(1)

  • BiCGStab (2), where 2 is the second degree polynomials.
  • IDR(4), where 4 is the size of the initial orthogonal set of vectors used for the reduction process.
  • GMRES (30), where 30 is the size of the Krylov subset.

and two preconditioners:

  1. Algebraic multigrid preconditioner for fully coupled flow scheme with the following smoothers:

    • Block Gauss-Seidel
    • Incomplete LU (ILU) decomposition
    • Algebraic Domain Decomposition

    The following table shows the 12 combinations of the algebraic multigrid preconditioner:

    BiCGStab(1) - Block Gauss-Seidel BiCGStab(1) - ILU BiCGStab(1) - Algebraic Domain Decomposition
    BiCGStab (2) - Block Gauss-Seidel BiCGStab (2) - ILU BiCGStab (2) - Algebraic Domain Decomposition
    IDR(4) - Block Gauss-Seidel IDR(4) - ILU IDR(4) - Algebraic Domain Decomposition
    GMRES (30) - Block Gauss-Seidel GMRES (30) - ILU GMRES (30) - Algebraic Domain Decomposition
  2. Incomplete LU (ILU) decomposition for single variable transport equation with the following options:

    • Fill-in ILU
    • Overlap ILU

    The following table shows the ILU decomposition combinations:

    BiCGStab(1) + Fill-in ILU + Overlap ILU
    BiCGStab (2) + Fill-in ILU + Overlap ILU
    IDR(4) + Fill-in ILU + Overlap ILU
    GMRES (30) +Fill-in ILU + Overlap