The GeoClaw software for depth-averaged flows with adaptive refinement

Many geophysical flow or wave propagation problems can be modeled with two-dimensional depth-averaged equations, of which the shallow water equations are the simplest example. We describe the GeoClaw software that has been designed to solve problems of this nature, consisting of open source Fortran programs together with Python tools for the user interface and flow visualization. This software uses high-resolution shock-capturing finite volume methods on logically rectangular grids, including latitude-longitude grids on the sphere. Dry states are handled automatically to model inundation. The code incorporates adaptive mesh refinement to allow the efficient solution of large-scale geophysical problems. Examples are given illustrating its use for modeling tsunamis and dam-break flooding problems. Documentation and download information is available at www.clawpack.org/geoclaw.     

A high order WENO finite difference scheme for incompressible fluids and magnetohydrodynamics

We present a high order accurate weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) finite difference scheme for solving the equations of incompressible fluid dynamics and magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). This scheme is a direct extension of a WENO scheme that has been successfully applied to compressible fluids, with or without magnetic fields. A fractional time-step method is used to enforce the incompressibility condition. Two basic elements of the WENO scheme, upwinding and wave decomposition, are shown to be important in solving the incompressible systems. Numerical results demonstrate that the scheme performs well for one-dimensional Riemann problems, a two-dimensional double-shear flow problem, and the two-dimensional Orszag–Tang MHD vortex system. They establish that the WENO code is numerical stable even when there are no explicit dissipation terms. It can handle discontinuous data and attain converged results with a high order of accuracy.