AILU preconditioning for the finite element formulation of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations

Abstract

In this paper, the effect of a variable reordering method on the performance of adapted incomplete LU (AILU) preconditioners applied to the P2P1 mixed finite element discretization of the three-dimensional unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations has been studied through numerical experiments, where eigenvalue distribution and convergence histories are examined. It has been revealed that the performance of an AILU preconditioner is improved by adopting a variable reordering method which minimizes the bandwidth of a globally assembled saddle-point type matrix. Furthermore, variants of the existing AILU(1) preconditioner have been suggested and tested for some three-dimensional flow problems. It is observed that the AILU(2) outperforms the existing AILU(1) with a little extra computing time and memory.