An efficient splitting iteration for a CDA-accelerated solver for incompressible flow problems

Abstract: We propose, analyze, and test an efficient splitting iteration for solving the incompressible, steady Navier-Stokes equations in the setting where partial solution data is known. The (possibly noisy) solution data is incorporated into a Picard-type solver via continuous data assimilation (CDA). Efficiency is gained over the usual Picard iteration through an algebraic splitting of Yosida-type that produces easier linear solves, and accuracy/consistency is shown to be maintained through the use of an incremental pressure and grad-div stabilization. We prove that CDA scales the Lipschitz constant of the associated fixed point operator by $H^{1/2}$, where $H$ is the characteristic spacing of the known solution data. This implies that CDA accelerates an already converging solver (and the more data, the more acceleration) and enables convergence of solvers in parameter regimes where the solver would fail (and the more data, the larger the parameter regime). Numerical tests illustrate the theory on several benchmark test problems and show that the proposed efficient solver gives nearly identical results in terms of number of iterations to converge; in other words, the proposed solver gives an efficiency gain with no loss in convergence rate.