Compressible example problems

Example problems

Note

The 4th-order accurate solver (pyro.compressible_fv4) requires that the initialization create cell-averages accurate to 4th-order. To allow for all the solvers to use the same problem setups, we assume that the initialization routines initialize cell-centers (which is fine for 2nd-order accuracy), and the preevolve() method will convert these to cell-averages automatically after initialization.

Sod

The Sod problem is a standard hydrodynamics problem. It is a one-dimensional shock tube (two states separated by an interface), that exhibits all three hydrodynamic waves: a shock, contact, and rarefaction. Furthermore, there are exact solutions for a gamma-law equation of state, so we can check our solution against these exact solutions. See Toro’s book for details on this problem and the exact Riemann solver.

Because it is one-dimensional, we run it in narrow domains in the x- or y-directions. It can be run as:

pyro_sim.py compressible sod inputs.sod.x
pyro_sim.py compressible sod inputs.sod.y

A simple script, sod_compare.py in analysis/ will read a pyro output file and plot the solution over the exact Sod solution. Below we see the result for a Sod run with 128 points in the x-direction, gamma = 1.4, and run until t = 0.2 s.

We see excellent agreement for all quantities. The shock wave is very steep, as expected. The contact wave is smeared out over ~5 zones—this is discussed in the notes above, and can be improved in the PPM method with contact steepening.

Sedov

The Sedov blast wave problem is another standard test with an analytic solution (Sedov 1959). A lot of energy is point into a point in a uniform medium and a blast wave propagates outward. The Sedov problem is run as:

pyro_sim.py compressible sedov inputs.sedov

The video below shows the output from a 128 x 128 grid with the energy put in a radius of 0.0125 surrounding the center of the domain. A gamma-law EOS with gamma = 1.4 is used, and we run until 0.1

We see some grid effects because it is hard to initialize a small circular explosion on a rectangular grid. To compare to the analytic solution, we need to radially bin the data. Since this is a 2-d explosion, the physical geometry it represents is a cylindrical blast wave, so we compare to Sedov’s cylindrical solution. The radial binning is done with the sedov_compare.py script in analysis/

This shows good agreement with the analytic solution.

quad

The quad problem sets up different states in four regions of the domain and watches the complex interfaces that develop as shocks interact. This problem has appeared in several places (and a detailed investigation is online by Pawel Artymowicz). It is run as:

pyro_sim.py compressible quad inputs.quad

rt

The Rayleigh-Taylor problem puts a dense fluid over a lighter one and perturbs the interface with a sinusoidal velocity. Hydrostatic boundary conditions are used to ensure any initial pressure waves can escape the domain. It is run as:

pyro_sim.py compressible rt inputs.rt

bubble

The bubble problem initializes a hot spot in a stratified domain and watches it buoyantly rise and roll up. This is run as:

pyro_sim.py compressible bubble inputs.bubble

The shock at the top of the domain is because we cut off the stratified atmosphere at some low density and the resulting material above that rains down on our atmosphere. Also note the acoustic signal propagating outward from the bubble (visible in the U and e panels).