An Eulerian-Lagrangian Runge-Kutta finite volume (EL-RK-FV) method for solving convection and convection-diffusion equations

Abstract: We propose a new Eulerian-Lagrangian Runge-Kutta finite volume method for numerically solving convection and convection-diffusion equations. Eulerian-Lagrangian and semi-Lagrangian methods have grown in popularity mostly due to their ability to allow large time steps. Our proposed scheme is formulated by integrating the PDE on a space-time region partitioned by approximations of the characteristics determined from the Rankine-Hugoniot jump condition; and then rewriting the time-integral form into a time differential form to allow application of Runge-Kutta (RK) methods via the method-of-lines approach. The scheme can be viewed as a generalization of the standard Runge-Kutta finite volume (RK-FV) scheme for which the space-time region is partitioned by approximate characteristics with zero velocity. The high-order spatial reconstruction is achieved using the recently developed weighted essentially non-oscillatory schemes with adaptive order (WENO-AO); and the high-order temporal accuracy is achieved by explicit RK methods for convection equations and implicit-explicit (IMEX) RK methods for convection-diffusion equations. Our algorithm extends to higher dimensions via dimensional splitting. Numerical experiments demonstrate our algorithm's robustness, high-order accuracy, and ability to handle extra large time steps.