Second-order accurate BGK schemes for the special relativistic hydrodynamics with the Synge equation of state

Abstract: This paper extends the second-order accurate BGK finite volume schemes for the ultra-relativistic flow simulations [5] to the 1D and 2D special relativistic hydrodynamics with the Synge equation of state. It is shown that such 2D schemes are very time-consuming due to the moment integrals (triple integrals) so that they are no longer practical. In view of this, the simplified BGK (sBGK) schemes are presented by removing some terms in the approximate nonequilibrium distribution at the cell interface for the BGK scheme without loss of accuracy. They are practical because the moment integrals of the approximate distribution can be reduced to the single integrals by some coordinate transformations. The relations between the left and right states of the shock wave, rarefaction wave, and contact discontinuity are also discussed, so that the exact solution of the 1D Riemann problem could be derived and used for the numerical comparisons. Several numerical experiments are conducted to demonstrate that the proposed gas-kinetic schemes are accurate and stable. A comparison of the sBGK schemes with the BGK scheme in one dimension shows that the former performs almost the same as the latter in terms of the accuracy and resolution, but is much more efficiency.