Numerical investigation of ensemble methods with block iterative solvers for evolution problems

Abstract

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>The ensemble method has been developed for accelerating a sequence of numerical simulations of evolution problems. Its main idea is, by manipulating the time stepping and grouping discrete problems, to make all members in the same group share a common coefficient matrix. Thus, at each time step, instead of solving a sequence of linear systems each of which contains only one right-hand-side vector, the ensemble method simultaneously solves a single linear system with multiple right-hand-side vectors for each group. Such a system could be solved efficiently by using direct linear solvers when the problems are of small scale, as the same LU factorization would work for the entire group members. However, for large-scale problems, iterative linear solvers often have to be used and then this appealing advantage becomes not obvious. In this paper we systematically investigate numerical performance of the ensemble method with block iterative solvers for two typical evolution problems: the heat equation and the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. In particular, the block conjugate gradient (CG) solver is considered for the former and the block generalized minimal residual (GMRES) solver for the latter. Our numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the ensemble method when working together with these block iterative solvers.