Implicit high-order flux reconstruction solver for high-speed compressible flows

Abstract

The present paper addresses the development and implementation of the first high-order Flux Reconstruction (FR) solver for high-speed flows within the open-source COOLFluiD (Computational Object-Oriented Libraries for Fluid Dynamics) platform. The resulting solver is fully implicit and able to simulate compressible flow problems governed by either the Euler or the Navier–Stokes equations in two and three dimensions. Furthermore, it can run in parallel on multiple CPU-cores and is designed to handle unstructured grids consisting of both straight and curved edged quadrilateral or hexahedral elements. While most of the implementation relies on state-of-the-art FR algorithms, an improved and more case-independent shock capturing scheme has been developed in order to tackle the first viscous hypersonic simulations using the FR method. Extensive verification of the FR solver has been performed through the use of reproducible benchmark test cases with flow speeds ranging from subsonic to hypersonic, up to Mach 17.6. The obtained results have been favorably compared to those available in literature. Furthermore, so-called “super-accuracy” is retrieved for certain cases when solving the Euler equations. The strengths of the FR solver in terms of computational accuracy per degree of freedom are also illustrated and its computation cost per degree of freedom is assessed for different orders. Finally, the influence of the characterizing parameters of the FR method as well as the influence of the novel shock capturing scheme on the accuracy of the developed solver is discussed.