13th International Workshop on Variational Multiscale and Stabilized Finite Elemements (VMS 18) - Abstract
Linke, Alexander
Recently, high-order space discretisations were proposed for the numerical simulation of the incompressible Navier--Stokes equations at high Reynolds numbers, even for complicated domains from simulation practice. Although the overall spatial approximation order of the algorithms depends on the approximation quality of the boundary (often not better than third order), competitively accurate and efficient results were reported. In this contribution, first, a possible explanation for this somewhat surprising result is proposed: the velocity error of high-order space discretisations is more robust against quantitatively large and complicated pressure fields than low-order methods. Second, it is demonstrated that novel pressure-robust methods are significantly more accurate than comparable classical, non-pressure-robust space discretisations, whenever the quadratic, nonlinear convection term is a nontrivial gradient field like in certain generalised Beltrami flows at high Reynolds number. Then, pressure-robust methods even allow to halve the (formal) approximation order without compromising the accuracy. Third, classical high-order space discretisations are outperformed by pressure-robust methods whenever the boundary is not approximated with high-order accuracy. This improved accuracy of (low-order) pressure-robust mixed methods is explained in terms of a Helmholtz--Hodge projector, which cancels out the nonlinear convection term in any generalised Beltrami flow, since it is a gradient field. The numerical results are illustrated by a novel numerical analysis for pressure-robust and classical space discretisations. Further, the relevance of these results is discussed for flows that are not of Beltrami type.