Structure Preserving Finite Volume Schemes on Voronoi Grids: Curl Involution, Asymptotic Limit and Thermodynamics

Abstract: We propose a new curl-free and thermodynamically compatible finite volume scheme on Voronoi grids to solve compressible heat conducting flows written in first-order hyperbolic form. The approach is based on the definition of compatible discrete curl-grad operators, exploiting the triangular nature of the dual mesh. We design a cell solver reminiscent of the nodal solvers used in Lagrangian schemes to discretize the evolution equation for the thermal impulse vector, and we demonstrate that the resulting numerical scheme ensures energy conservation, local non-negative entropy production, as well as asymptotic consistency with the classical Fourier law in the stiff relaxation limit. A novel technique is proposed to transfer residuals from the dual to the primal mesh as subfluxes, which eventually yields the construction of entropy compatible semi-discrete methods. The scheme and its properties are validated on a set of numerical test cases.