Joint-mode diffusion analysis of discontinuous Galerkin methods: Towards superior dissipation estimates for nonlinear problems and implicit LES

Abstract

We present a new linear eigensolution analysis technique that provides superior estimates of dissipation distribution in wavenumber space for the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method. The technique builds upon traditional dispersion-diffusion analyses that have been applied to spectral/hp element methods, but in particular is an improvement upon the non-modal eigenanalysis approach proposed by Fernandez et al. in [1]. The present technique takes into account the indirect effects that dispersion may have on dissipation, as recently discussed by Moura et al. in [2], in order to better represent dissipation itself. Also, a concept often used with dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) techniques is invoked to weight the relative contribution of the multiple diffusion curves that stem from temporal eigenanalysis. This allows for obtaining a single dissipation profile in wavenumber space, so that the proposed technique is named joint-mode analysis. Although the non-modal approach also provides a single diffusion curve, the joint-mode dissipation curve is shown to correlate significantly better with the energy spectrum of Burgers' turbulence at large and intermediate scales, which is particularly relevant for implicit large-eddy simulation (LES). The proposed technique is readily extensible to other spectral/hp element methods.