An Approximate Riemann Solver for Magnetohydrodynamics (That Works More Than One Dimension)

Abstract

An approximate Riemann solver is developed for the governing equations of ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). The Riemann solver has an eight- wave structure, where seven of the waves are those used in previous work on upwind schemes for MHD, and the eighth wave is related to the divergence of the magnetic field. The structure of the eight wave is not immediately obvious from the governing equations as they are usually written, but arises from the modification of the equations that is presented in this paper. The addition of the eighth wave allows multi-dimensional MHD problems to be solved without the use of staggered grids or a projection scheme, one of the other of which was necessary in previous work on upwind schemes for MHD. A test problem made up of a shock tube with rotated initial conditions is solved to show that the two- dimensional code yields answers consistent with one-dimensional methods developed previously.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 1994
Accession Number
ADA280296

Entities

People

  • Kenneth G. Powell

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acoustic Waves
  • Cauchy Problem
  • Computers
  • Differential Equations
  • Discontinuities
  • Eigenvalues
  • Eigenvectors
  • Engineering
  • Equations
  • Euler Equations
  • Magnetic Fields
  • Partial Differential Equations
  • Personal Information Managers
  • Poisson Equation
  • Shock Tubes
  • Tubes
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
  • Military History / Militaries and War Studies
  • Plasma Physics / Magnetohydrodynamics