scholarly journals A mimetic, semi-implicit, forward-in-time, finite volume shallow water model: comparison of hexagonal–icosahedral and cubed-sphere grids

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 909-929 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Thuburn ◽  
C. J. Cotter ◽  
T. Dubos

Abstract. A new algorithm is presented for the solution of the shallow water equations on quasi-uniform spherical grids. It combines a mimetic finite volume spatial discretization with a Crank–Nicolson time discretization of fast waves and an accurate and conservative forward-in-time advection scheme for mass and potential vorticity (PV). The algorithm is implemented and tested on two families of grids: hexagonal–icosahedral Voronoi grids, and modified equiangular cubed-sphere grids. Results of a variety of tests are presented, including convergence of the discrete scalar Laplacian and Coriolis operators, advection, solid body rotation, flow over an isolated mountain, and a barotropically unstable jet. The results confirm a number of desirable properties for which the scheme was designed: exact mass conservation, very good available energy and potential enstrophy conservation, consistent mass, PV and tracer transport, and good preservation of balance including vanishing ∇ × ∇, steady geostrophic modes, and accurate PV advection. The scheme is stable for large wave Courant numbers and advective Courant numbers up to about 1. In the most idealized tests the overall accuracy of the scheme appears to be limited by the accuracy of the Coriolis and other mimetic spatial operators, particularly on the cubed-sphere grid. On the hexagonal grid there is no evidence for damaging effects of computational Rossby modes, despite attempts to force them explicitly.

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 6867-6925 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Thuburn ◽  
C. J. Cotter ◽  
T. Dubos

Abstract. A new algorithm is presented for the solution of the shallow water equations on quasi-uniform spherical grids. It combines a mimetic finite volume spatial discretization with a Crank–Nicolson time discretization of fast waves and an accurate and conservative forward-in-time advection scheme for mass and potential vorticity (PV). The algorithm is implemented and tested on two families of grids: hexagonal–icosahedral Voronoi grids, and modified equiangular cubed-sphere grids. Results of a variety of tests are presented, including convergence of the discrete scalar Laplacian and Coriolis operators, advection, solid body rotation, flow over an isolated mountain, and a barotropically unstable jet. The results confirm a number of desirable properties for which the scheme was designed: exact mass conservation, very good available energy and potential enstrophy conservation, consistent mass, PV and tracer transport, and good preservation of balance including vanishing ∇ × ∇, steady geostrophic modes, and accurate PV advection. The scheme is stable for large wave Courant numbers and advective Courant numbers up to about 1. In the most idealized tests the overall accuracy of the scheme appears to be limited by the accuracy of the Coriolis and other mimetic spatial operators, particularly on the cubed sphere grid. On the hexagonal grid there is no evidence for damaging effects of computational Rossby modes, despite attempts to force them explicitly.


2011 ◽  
Vol 139 (2) ◽  
pp. 523-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chungang Chen ◽  
Feng Xiao ◽  
Xingliang Li

Abstract An adaptive global shallow-water model is proposed on cubed-sphere grid using the multimoment finite volume scheme and the Berger–Oliger adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) algorithm that was originally designed for a Cartesian grid. On each patch of the cubed-sphere grid, the curvilinear coordinates are constructed in a way that the Berger–Oliger algorithm can be applied directly. Moreover, an algorithm to transfer data across neighboring patches is proposed to establish a practical integrated framework for global AMR computation on the cubed-sphere grid. The multimoment finite volume scheme is adopted as the fluid solver and is essentially beneficial to the implementation of AMR on the cubed-sphere grid. The multimoment interpolation based on both volume-integrated average (VIA) and point value (PV) provides the compact reconstruction that makes the present scheme very attractive not only in dealing with the artificial boundaries between different patches but also in the coarse–fine interpolations required in the AMR computations. The single-cell-based reconstruction avoids involving more than two nesting levels during interpolations. The reconstruction profile of constrained interpolation profile–conservative semi-Lagrangian scheme with third-order polynomial function (CIP-CSL3) is adopted where the slope parameter provides a flexible and convenient switching to get the desired numerical properties, such as high-order (fourth order) accuracy, monotonicity, and positive definiteness. Numerical experiments with typical benchmark tests for both advection equation and shallow-water equations are carried out to evaluate the proposed model. The numerical errors and the corresponding CPU times of numerical experiments on uniform and adaptive meshes verify the performance of the proposed model. Compared to the uniformly refined grid, the AMR technique is able to achieve the similar numerical accuracy with less computational cost.


2009 ◽  
Vol 137 (10) ◽  
pp. 3339-3350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramachandran D. Nair

Abstract A second-order diffusion scheme is developed for the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) global shallow-water model. The shallow-water equations are discretized on the cubed sphere tiled with quadrilateral elements relying on a nonorthogonal curvilinear coordinate system. In the viscous shallow-water model the diffusion terms (viscous fluxes) are approximated with two different approaches: 1) the element-wise localized discretization without considering the interelement contributions and 2) the discretization based on the local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) method. In the LDG formulation the advection–diffusion equation is solved as a first-order system. All of the curvature terms resulting from the cubed-sphere geometry are incorporated into the first-order system. The effectiveness of each diffusion scheme is studied using the standard shallow-water test cases. The approach of element-wise localized discretization of the diffusion term is easy to implement but found to be less effective, and with relatively high diffusion coefficients, it can adversely affect the solution. The shallow-water tests show that the LDG scheme converges monotonically and that the rate of convergence is dependent on the coefficient of diffusion. Also the LDG scheme successfully eliminates small-scale noise, and the simulated results are smooth and comparable to the reference solution.


2009 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
pp. 1422-1437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin-Luen Lee ◽  
Alexander E. MacDonald

Abstract An icosahedral-hexagonal shallow-water model (SWM) on the sphere is formulated on a local Cartesian coordinate based on the general stereographic projection plane. It is discretized with the third-order Adam–Bashforth time-differencing scheme and the second-order finite-volume operators for spatial derivative terms. The finite-volume operators are applied to the model variables defined on the nonstaggered grid with the edge variables interpolated using polynomial interpolation. The projected local coordinate reduces the solution space from the three-dimensional, curved, spherical surface to the two-dimensional plane and thus reduces the number of complete sets of basis functions in the Vandermonde matrix, which is the essential component of the interpolation. The use of a local Cartesian coordinate also greatly simplifies the mathematic formulation of the finite-volume operators and leads to the finite-volume integration along straight lines on the plane, rather than along curved lines on the spherical surface. The SWM is evaluated with the standard test cases of Williamson et al. Numerical results show that the icosahedral SWM is free from Pole problems. The SWM is a second-order finite-volume model as shown by the truncation error convergence test. The lee-wave numerical solutions are compared and found to be very similar to the solutions shown in other SWMs. The SWM is stably integrated for several weeks without numerical dissipation using the wavenumber 4 Rossby–Haurwitz solution as an initial condition. It is also shown that the icosahedral SWM achieves mass conservation within round-off errors as one would expect from a finite-volume model.


2013 ◽  
Vol 57 (03) ◽  
pp. 125-140
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Liut ◽  
Kenneth M. Weems ◽  
Tin-Guen Yen

A quasi-three-dimensional hydrodynamic model is presented to simulate shallow water phenomena. The method is based on a finite-volume approach designed to solve shallow water equations in the time domain. The nonlinearities of the governing equations are considered. The methodology can be used to compute green water effects on a variety of platforms with six-degrees-of-freedom motions. Different boundary and initial conditions can be applied for multiple types of moving platforms, like a ship's deck, tanks, etc. Comparisons with experimental data are discussed. The shallow water model has been integrated with the Large Amplitude Motions Program to compute the effects of green water flow over decks within a time-domain simulation of ship motions in waves. Results associated to this implementation are presented.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 05032
Author(s):  
Minh H. Le ◽  
Virgile Dubos ◽  
Marina Oukacine ◽  
Nicole Goutal

Strong interactions exist between flow dynamics and vegetation in open-channel. Depth-averaged shallow water equations can be used for such a study. However, explicit representation of vegetation can lead to very high resolution of the mesh since the vegetation is often modelled as vertical cylinders. Our work aims to study the ability of a single porosity-based shallow water model for these applications. More attention on flux and source terms discretizations are required in order to archive the well-balancing and shock capturing properties. We present a new Godunov-type finite volume scheme based on a simple-wave approximation and compare it with some other methods in the literature. A first application with experimental data was performed.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document