High-order implicit time-stepping with high-order central essentially-non-oscillatory methods for unsteady three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics simulations

This article develops high-order implicit time-stepping methods combined with the fourth-order central essentially-non-oscillatory (CENO) scheme for stiff three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics problems having disparate characteristic time scales. Both aerodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic problems are considered on three-dimensional multiblock body-fitted grids with hexahedral cells. Several implicit time integration methods of third- and fourth-order accuracy are considered, including the multistep backward differentiation formulas (BDF4), multistage explicitly singly diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta (ESDIRK4), and Rosenbrock-type methods (ROS34POW2). The resulting nonlinear algebraic system of equations is solved via a preconditioned Jacobian-free inexact Newton-Krylov method with additive Schwarz preconditioning using block-based incomplete LU decomposition. The performance of the high-order implicit time-stepping methods on smooth and stiff problems is compared with a standard fourth-order explicit Runge-Kutta (RK4) method. It is shown that the Rosenbrock methods, despite their advantage of only requiring the solution of linear systems, have significant drawbacks in terms of robustness issues for highly nonlinear compressible flows. The implicit BDF4 and ESDIRK4 methods are found to be much more efficient than the explicit fourth-order RK4 method for a stiff resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) problem discretized with the fourth-order CENO method. When applied to the problem of vortex shedding governed by the Navier-Stokes equations, an A-stable ESDIRK4 scheme proved to be the more robust and accurate implicit time-marching scheme and was able to offer significant speedup compared with the RK4 method. Initial results are also shown for high-order implicit time integration applied to two problems with discontinuities. The current study represents the first to achieve high-order implicit time integration for MHD, enabling large time steps and substantial speedups for stiff MHD problems with high-order accuracy, and it also represents the first to establish high-order implicit time integration for high-order CENO in space.