A finite element solution of a tidal current problem in the seto inland sea by using the ICCG method

Abstract

AbstractWhen the finite element method is applied to the analysis of tidal currents in an inland sea with many islands, a system of linear equations with large band and sparse coefficient matrix is solved at each time step, and therefore the finite element methods usually suffer a severe economic disadvantage for practical calculations. The method used in this paper for solving a system of linear equations with large band and sparse coefficient matrix is the incomplete Cholesky conjugate gradient (ICCG) method: The ICCG method was compared with other methods such as the Gaussian elimination method, the Gauss–Seidel method and the conjugate gradient method. This method showed significant improvement in computation time and it can overcome the disadvantage that the efficiency to solve the matrix equations which appear in the finite element analysis of tidal currents usually diminishes as the bandwidth grows. The simulation results of tidal currents in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan were compared with field data and good agreements were obtained.