Filter stabilization for the mildly compressible Euler equations with application to atmosphere dynamics simulations

Abstract: We present a filter stabilization technique for the mildly compressible Euler equations that relies on a linear or nonlinear indicator function to identify the regions of the domain where artificial viscosity is needed and determine its amount. For the realization of this technique, we adopt a three step algorithm called Evolve-Filter-Relax (EFR), which at every time step evolves the solution (i.e., solves the Euler equations on a coarse mesh), then filters the computed solution, and finally performs a relaxation step to combine the filtered and non-filtered solutions. We show that the EFR algorithm is equivalent to an eddy-viscosity model in Large Eddy Simulation. Three indicator functions are considered: a constant function (leading to a linear filter), a function proportional to the norm of the velocity gradient (recovering a Smagorinsky-like model), and a function based on approximate deconvolution operators. Through well-known benchmarks for atmospheric flow, we show that the deconvolution-based filter yields stable solutions that are much less dissipative than the linear filter and the Samgorinsky-like model and we highlight the efficiency of the EFR algorithm.