Abstract: | In this paper, a compact third-order gas-kinetic scheme is proposed for the
compressible Euler and Navier-Stokes equations. The main reason for the feasibility
to develop such a high-order scheme with compact stencil, which involves only
neighboring cells, is due to the use of a high-order gas evolution model. Besides the
evaluation of the time-dependent flux function across a cell interface, the high-order
gas evolution model also provides an accurate time-dependent solution of the flow
variables at a cell interface. Therefore, the current scheme not only updates the cell
averaged conservative flow variables inside each control volume, but also tracks the
flow variables at the cell interface at the next time level. As a result, with both cell averaged
and cell interface values, the high-order reconstruction in the current scheme
can be done compactly. Different from using a weak formulation for high-order accuracy
in the Discontinuous Galerkin method, the current scheme is based on the strong
solution, where the flow evolution starting from a piecewise discontinuous high-order
initial data is precisely followed. The cell interface time-dependent flow variables can
be used for the initial data reconstruction at the beginning of next time step. Even with
compact stencil, the current scheme has third-order accuracy in the smooth flow regions,
and has favorable shock capturing property in the discontinuous regions. It can
be faithfully used from the incompressible limit to the hypersonic flow computations,
and many test cases are used to validate the current scheme. In comparison with many
other high-order schemes, the current method avoids the use of Gaussian points for
the flux evaluation along the cell interface and the multi-stage Runge-Kutta time stepping
technique. Due to its multidimensional property of including both derivatives of
flow variables in the normal and tangential directions of a cell interface, the viscous
flow solution, especially those with vortex structure, can be accurately captured. With
the same stencil of a second order scheme, numerical tests demonstrate that the current
scheme is as robust as well-developed second-order shock capturing schemes, but
provides more accurate numerical solutions than the second order counterparts. |