Adaptive implicit finite difference method for natural gas pipeline transient flow

Abstract

The implicit finite difference method is one of the most widely applied methods for transient natural gas simulation. However, this implicit method is associated with high computational cost. To improve the simulation efficiency of implicit finite difference method, an adaptive strategy is introduced into the simulation process. The proposed adaptive strategy consists of the adaptive time step strategy and the adaptive spatial grid strategy. And these two parts are implemented based on the local error technique and the multilevel grid technique respectively. The results illustrate that the proposed adaptive method can automatically and independently adjust the time step and the spatial grid system according to the gas flow state in the simulation process, and demonstrates a significant advantage in terms of computational accuracy and efficiency compared with the non-adaptive method.