3-DIMENSIONAL UNSTRUCTURED MULTIGRID FOR THE EULER EQUATIONS

The three-dimensional Euler equations are solved on unstructured tetrahedral meshes using a multigrid strategy. The driving algorithm consists of an explicit vertex-based finite element scheme, which employs an edge-based data structure to assemble the residuals. The multigrid approach employs a sequence of independently generated coarse and fine meshes to accelerate the convergence to steady state of the fine grid solution. Variables, residuals, and corrections are passed back and forth between the various grids of the sequence using linear interpolation. The addresses and weights for interpolation are determined in a preprocessing stage using an efficient graph traversal algorithm. The preprocessing operation is shown to require a negligible fraction of the CPU time required by the overall solution procedure, whereas gains in overall solution efficiencies greater than an order of magnitude are demonstrated on meshes containing up to 350,000 vertices. Solutions using globally regenerated fine meshes as well as adaptively refined meshes are given.