A family of high-order gas-kinetic schemes and its comparison with Riemann solver based high-order methods

Most high order computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods for compressible flows are based on Riemann solver for the flux evaluation and Runge-Kutta (RK) time stepping technique for temporal accuracy. The advantage of this kind of space-time separation approach is the easy implementation and stability enhancement by introducing more middle stages. However, the nth-order time accuracy needs no less than n stages for the RK method, which can be very time and memory consuming due to the reconstruction at each stage for a high order method. On the other hand, the multi-stage multi-derivative (MSMD) method can be used to achieve the same order of time accuracy using less middle stages with the use of the time derivatives of the flux function. For traditional Riemann solver based CFD methods, the lack of time derivatives in the flux function prevents its direct implementation of the MSMD method. However, the gas kinetic scheme (GKS) provides such a time accurate evolution model. By combining the second-order or third-order GKS flux functions with the MSMD technique, a family of high order gas kinetic methods can be constructed. As an extension of the previous 2-stage 4th-order GKS, the 5th-order schemes with 2 and 3 stages will be developed in this paper. Based on the same 5th-order WENO reconstruction, the performance of gas kinetic schemes from the 2nd- to the 5th-order time accurate methods will be evaluated. The results show that the 5th-order scheme can achieve the theoretical order of accuracy for the Euler equations, and present accurate Navier-Stokes solutions as well due to the coupling of inviscid and viscous terms in the GKS formulation. In comparison with Riemann solver based 5th-order RK method, the high order GKS has advantages in terms of efficiency, accuracy, and robustness, for all test cases. The 4th- and 5th-order GKS have the same robustness as the 2nd-order scheme for the capturing of discontinuous solutions. The current high order MSMD GKS is a multi-dimensional scheme with incorporation of both normal and tangential spatial derivatives of flow variables at a cell interface in the flux evaluation. The scheme can be extended straightforwardly to viscous flow computation in unstructured mesh. It provides a promising direction for the development of high-order CFD methods for the computation of complex flows, such as turbulence and acoustics with shock interactions.