Reuse, Recycle, Reduce (3R) – strategies for the calculation of transient magnetic fields

Abstract

The discretization of transient magneto-dynamic field problems with geometric discretization schemes such as the Finite Integration Technique or the Finite-Element Method based on Whitney form functions results in nonlinear differential-algebraic systems of equations of index 1. Their time integration with embedded s-stage singly diagonal implicit Runge–Kutta methods requires the solution of s nonlinear systems within one time step. Accelerated solution of these schemes is achieved with techniques following so-called 3R-strategies (“ reuse, recycle, reduce”). This involves e.g. the solution of the linear(-ized) equations in each time step where the solution process of the iterative preconditioned conjugate gradient method reuses and recycles spectral information of linear systems from previous stages. Additionally, a combination of an error controlled spatial adaptivity and an error controlled implicit Runge–Kutta scheme is used to reduce the number of unknowns for the algebraic problems effectively and to avoid unnecessary fine grid resolutions both in space and time. First numerical results for 2D nonlinear magneto-dynamic problems validate the presented approach and its implementation. The space discretization in the numerical examples is done by Lagrangian nodal finite elements but the presented algorithms also work in combination with other discretization schemes for the Maxwell equations such as the Whitney vector finite elements.