The preconditioned iterative solution of large-scale saddle-point systems is of great importance in numerous application areas, many of them involving partial differential equations. Robustness with respect to certain problem parameters is often a concern, and it can be addressed by identifying proper scalings of preconditioner building blocks. In this paper, we consider a new perspective to finding effective and robust preconditioners. Our approach is based on the consideration of the natural physical units underlying the respective saddle-point problem. This point of view, which we refer to as dimensional consistency, suggests a natural combination of the parameters intrinsic to the problem. It turns out that the scaling obtained in this way leads to robustness with respect to problem parameters in many relevant cases. As a consequence, we advertise dimensional consistency based preconditioning as a new and systematic way to designing parameter robust preconditoners for saddle-point systems arising from models for physical phenomena.
We establish a new iterative method for solving a class of large and sparse linear systems of equations with three-by-three block coefficient matrices having saddle point structure. Convergence properties of the proposed method are studied in details and its induced preconditioner is examined for accelerating the convergence speed of generalized minimal residual (GMRES) method. More precisely, we analyze the eigenvalue distribution of the preconditioned matrix. Numerical experiments are reported to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed preconditioner.
In this work, we consider the modeling of inclusions in the material using an unfitted finite element method. In the unfitted methods, structured background meshes are used and only the underlying finite element space is modified to incorporate the discontinuities, such as inclusions. Hence, the unfitted methods provide a more flexible framework for modeling the materials with multiple inclusions. We employ the method of Lagrange multipliers for enforcing the interface conditions between the inclusions and matrix, this gives rise to the linear system of equations of saddle point type. We utili…
We consider the reaction diffusion problem and present efficient ways to discretize and precondition in the singular perturbed case when the reaction term dominates the equation. Using the concepts of optimal test norm and saddle point reformulation, we provide efficient discretization processes for uniform and non-uniform meshes. We present a preconditioning strategy that works for a large range of the perturbation parameter. Numerical examples to illustrate the efficiency of the method are included for a problem on the unit square.
We propose an efficient solver for saddle point problems arising from finite element approximations of nonlocal multi-phase Allen--Cahn variational inequalities. The solver is seen to behave mesh independently and to have only a very mild dependence on the number of phase field variables. In addition we prove convergence, in three GMRES iterations, of the approximation of the two phase problem, regardless of mesh size or interfacial width. Numerical results are presented that illustrate the competitiveness of this approach.
This paper deals with solving a class of three-by-three block saddle point problems. The systems are solved by preconditioning techniques. Based on an iterative method, we construct a block upper triangular preconditioner. The convergence of the presented method is studied in details. Finally, some numerical experiments are given to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed preconditioner over some existing ones.
Recently, in (M. Masoudi, D.K. Salkuyeh, An extension of positive-definite and skew-Hermitian splitting method for preconditioning of generalized saddle point problems, Computers \& Mathematics with Application, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.camwa.2019.10.030, 2019) an extension of the positive definite and skew-Hermitian splitting (EPSS) iteration method for nonsingular generalized saddle point problems has been presented. In this article, we study semi-convergence of the EPSS method for singular generalized saddle problems. Then a special case of EPSS (SEPSS) preconditioner is applied to the non…
In this paper we consider multiple saddle point problems with block tridiagonal Hessian in a Hilbert space setting. Well-posedness and the related issue of preconditioning are discussed. We give a characterization of all block structured norms which ensure well-posedness of multiple saddle point problems as a helpful tool for constructing block diagonal preconditioners. We subsequently apply our findings to a general class of PDE-constrained optimal control problems containing a regularization parameter $α$ and derive $α$-robust preconditioners for the corresponding optimality systems. Finally…
Numerical simulation of incompressible viscous flow, in particular in three space dimensions, continues to remain a challenging task. Space-time finite element methods feature the natural construction of higher order discretization schemes. They offer the potential to achieve accurate results on computationally feasible grids. Linearizing the resulting algebraic problems by Newton's method yields linear systems with block matrices built of $(k+1)\times (k+1)$ saddle point systems, where $k$ denotes the polynomial order of the variational time discretization. We demonstrate numerically the effi…
We derive novel, fast, and parameter-robust preconditioned iterative methods for steady and time-dependent Navier--Stokes control problems. Our approach may be applied to time-dependent problems which are discretized using backward Euler or Crank--Nicolson, and is also a valuable candidate for Stokes control problems discretized using Crank--Nicolson. The key ingredients of the solver are a saddle-point type approximation for the linear systems, an inner iteration for the $(1,1)$-block accelerated by a preconditioner for convection--diffusion control, and an approximation to the Schur compleme…
Saddle point problems arise in a variety of applications, e.g., when solving the Stokes equations. They can be formulated such that the system matrix is symmetric, but indefinite, so the variational convergence theory that is usually used to prove multigrid convergence cannot be applied. In a 2016 paper in Numerische Mathematik Notay has presented a different algebraic approach that analyzes properly preconditioned saddle point problems, proving convergence of the Two-Grid method. In the present paper we analyze saddle point problems where the blocks are circulant within this framework. We are…
Robust Preconditioning for Space-Time Isogeometric Analysis of Parabolic Evolution Problems
Johannes Kepler University（约翰内斯·开普勒大学）；Institute of Computational Mathematics, Johannes Kepler University（约翰内斯·开普勒大学计算数学研究所）；Johann Radon Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics, Austrian Academy of Sciences（奥地利科学院约翰·拉顿计算与应用数学研究所）
In this work, we consider fracture propagation in nearly incompressible and (fully) incompressible materials using a phase-field formulation. We use a mixed form of the elasticity equation to overcome volume locking effects and develop a robust, nonlinear and linear solver scheme and preconditioner for the resulting system. The coupled variational inequality system, which is solved monolithically, consists of three unknowns: displacements, pressure, and phase-field. Nonlinearities due to coupling, constitutive laws, and crack irreversibility are solved using a combined Newton algorithm for the…
A transformed primal-dual (TPD) flow is developed for a class of nonlinear smooth saddle point system. The flow for the dual variable contains a Schur complement which is strongly convex. Exponential stability of the saddle point is obtained by showing the strong Lyapunov property. Several TPD iterations are derived by implicit Euler, explicit Euler, implicit-explicit and Gauss-Seidel methods with accelerated overrelaxation of the TPD flow. Generalized to the symmetric TPD iterations, linear convergence rate is preserved for convex-concave saddle point systems under assumptions that the regula…
Augmented Lagrangian preconditioning for a simplified Ericksen--Leslie model of nematic liquid crystals
College of Science, National University of Defense Technology（国防科技大学理学院）；College of Meteorology and Oceanography, National University of Defense Technology（国防科技大学气象海洋学院）
In recent years, solvers for finite-element discretizations of linear or linearized saddle-point problems, like the Stokes and Oseen equations, have become well established. There are two main classes of preconditioners for such systems: those based on block-factorization approach and those based on monolithic multigrid. Both classes of preconditioners have several critical choices to be made in their composition, such as the selection of a suitable relaxation scheme for monolithic multigrid. From existing studies, some insight can be gained as to what options are preferable in low-performance…
The discretization of robust quadratic optimal control problems under uncertainty using the finite element method and the stochastic collocation method leads to large saddle-point systems, which are fully coupled across the random realizations. Despite its relevance for numerous engineering problems, the solution of such systems is notoriusly challenging. In this manuscript, we study efficient preconditioners for all-at-once approaches using both an algebraic and an operator preconditioning framework. We show in particular that for values of the regularization parameter not too small, the sadd…
Incomplete factorization is a widely used preconditioning technique for Krylov subspace methods for solving large-scale sparse linear systems. Its multilevel variants, such as ILUPACK, are more robust for many symmetric or unsymmetric linear systems than the traditional, single-level incomplete LU (or ILU) techniques. However, the previous multilevel ILU techniques still lacked robustness and efficiency for some large-scale saddle-point problems, which often arise from systems of partial differential equations (PDEs). We introduce HILUCSI, or Hierarchical Incomplete LU-Crout with Scalability-o…
