Multigrid algorithms for high-order discontinuous Galerkin discretizations of the compressible Navier–Stokes equations

Multigrid algorithms are developed for systems arising from high-order discontinuous Galerkin discretizations of the compressible Navier–Stokes equations on unstructured meshes. The algorithms are based on coupling both p- and h-multigrid (ph-multigrid) methods which are used in nonlinear or linear forms, and either directly as solvers or as preconditioners to a Newton–Krylov method.The performance of the algorithms are examined in solving the laminar flow over an airfoil configuration. It is shown that the choice of the cycling strategy is crucial in achieving efficient and scalable solvers. For the multigrid solvers, while the order-independent convergence rate is obtained with a proper cycle type, the mesh-independent performance is achieved only if the coarsest problem is solved to a sufficient accuracy. On the other hand, the multigrid preconditioned Newton–GMRES solver appears to be insensitive to this condition and mesh-independent convergence is achieved under the desirable condition that the coarsest problem is solved using a fixed number of multigrid cycles regardless of the size of the problem.It is concluded that the Newton–GMRES solver with the multigrid preconditioning yields the most efficient and robust algorithm among those studied.