Free access article

Issue A&A Volume 430, Number 3, February II 2005 Page(s) 893 - 903 Section Extragalactic astronomy DOI 10.1051/0004-6361:20041530

A&A 430, 893-903 (2005)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20041530

A method for relaxing the Courant-Friedrich-Levy condition in time-explicit schemes

A. Hujeirat

Institute of Applied Mathematics, University of Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
    e-mail: ahmad.hujeirat@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de

(Received 25 June 2004 / Accepted 1 October 2004)

Abstract
We present a method for relaxing the Courant-Friedrich-Levy (CFL) condition, which limits the time step size in explicit numerical methods in computational fluid dynamics. The method is based on re-formulating explicit methods in matrix form. Here an explicit method appears as a special case in which the global matrix of coefficients is replaced by the most simple matrix in algebra: the identity matrix I. This procedure is stable under severe limiting conditions only. Using matrix formulation, one can design various solution methods in arbitrary dimensions that range from explicit to unconditionally stable implicit methods in which the CFL-number may reach arbitrary large values. In addition, we find that adopting a specially varying-time-stepping scheme accelerates convergence toward steady state solutions and improves the efficiency of the solution procedure.

Key words: methods: numerical -- hydrodynamics -- magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) -- radiative transfer

© ESO 2005

What is OpenURL?