Two-Level Finite Element Iterative Algorithm Based on Stabilized Method for the Stationary Incompressible Magnetohydrodynamics

Abstract

In this paper, based on the stabilization technique, the Oseen iterative method and the two-level finite element algorithm are combined to numerically solve the stationary incompressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations. For the low regularity of the magnetic field, when dealing with the magnetic field sub-problem, the Lagrange multiplier technique is used. The stabilized method is applied to approximate the flow field sub-problem to circumvent the inf-sup condition restrictions. One- and two-level stabilized finite element algorithms are presented, and their stability and convergence analysis is given. The two-level method uses the Oseen iteration to solve the nonlinear MHD equations on a coarse grid of size H, and then employs the linearized correction on a fine grid with grid size h. The error analysis shows that when the grid sizes satisfy h=O(H2), the two-level stabilization method has the same convergence order as the one-level one. However, the former saves more computational cost than the latter one. Finally, through some numerical experiments, it has been verified that our proposed method is effective. The two-level stabilized method takes less than half the time of the one-level one when using the second class Nédélec element to approximate magnetic field, and even takes almost a third of the computing time of the one-level one when adopting the first class Nédélec element.