Two-step multi-resolution reconstruction-based compact gas-kinetic scheme on tetrahedral mesh

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a third-order compact gas-kinetic scheme (GKS) for compressible Euler and Navier-Stokes solutions, constructed particularly for an unstructured tetrahedral mesh. The scheme utilizes a time-dependent gas distribution function at a cell interface to not only calculate the fluxes needed for updating the cell-averaged flow variables but also to evaluate the flow variables at the cell interface. This leads to the evolution of cell-averaged gradients of flow variables. The success of this scheme heavily relies on the initial data reconstruction techniques, with an emphasis on their application to the tetrahedral mesh. Employing a conventional second-order unlimited least-square reconstruction directly on the cell-averaged flow variables of von Neumann neighbouring cells can introduce linear instability into the scheme. However, by using the updated cell-averaged gradients, the GKS with a third-order compact smooth reconstruction remains linearly stable under a large CFL number when applied to a tetrahedral mesh. To enhance the robustness of the high-order compact GKS for capturing a discontinuous solution, we propose a novel two-step multi-resolution weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) reconstruction. This innovative approach overcomes the stability issues associated with a second-order compact reconstruction by incorporating a pre-reconstruction step. Additionally, it simplifies the third-order non-linear reconstruction process by adding a single large stencil to those used in the second-order one. A high-order wall boundary condition is achieved by fusing the constrained least-square technique with the WENO procedure, where a quadratic element is used in the reconstruction for cells with a curved boundary. Numerical tests involving both the second-order and third-order compact GKS are presented, encompassing both inviscid and viscous flows at both low and high speeds. The results demonstrate that the proposed third-order compact scheme possesses robustness in high-speed flow computation and exhibits excellent adaptability to meshes with complex geometrical configurations.