Second order ensemble simulation for MHD flow in Elsässer variable with noisy input data

Abstract

We propose, analyze and test a fully discrete, efficient second-order algorithm for computing flow ensembles average of viscous, incompressible, and time-dependent magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flows under uncertainties in initial conditions. The scheme is decoupled and based on Elsässer variable formulation. The algorithm uses the breakthrough idea of Jiang and Layton, 2014 to approximate the ensemble average of J realizations. That is, at each time step, each of the J realization shares the same coefficient matrix for different right-hand side matrices. Thus, storage requirements and computational time are reduced by building preconditioners once per time step and reuse them. We prove stability and optimal convergence with respect to the time step restriction. On some manufactured solutions, numerical experiments are given to verify the predicted convergence rates of our analysis. Finally, we test the scheme on a benchmark channel flow over a step and it performs well.