Acceleration Methods for Coarse-Grained Numerical Solution of the Boltzmann Equation

Abstract

We present a coarse-grained steady-state solution framework for the Boltzmann kinetic equation based on a Newton-Broyden iteration. This approach is an extension of the equation-free framework proposed by Kevrekidis and coworkers, whose objective is the use of fine-scale simulation tools to directly extract coarse-grained, macroscopic information. Our current objective is the development of efficient simulation tools for modeling complex micro- and nanoscale flows. The iterative method proposed and used here consists of a short Boltzmann transient evolution step and a Newton-Broyden contraction mapping step based on the Boltzmann solution; the latter step only solves for the macroscopic field of interest (e.g., flow velocity). The predicted macroscopic field is then used as an initial condition for the Boltzmann solver for the next iteration. We have validated this approach for isothermal, one-dimensional flows in the low Knudsen number regime. We find that the Newton-Broyden iteration converges in O(10) iterations, starting from arbitrary guess solutions and a Navier-Stokes based initial Jacobian. This results in computational savings compared to time-explicit integration to steady states when the time to steady state is longer than O(40) mean collision times.