Relaxation approaches to the optimal control of the Euler equations

Abstract

The treatment of control problems governed by systems of conservation laws poses serious challenges for analysis and numerical simulations. This is due mainly to shock waves that occur in the solution of nonlinear systems of conservation laws. In this article, the problem of the control of Euler flows in gas dynamics is considered. Numerically, two semi-linear approximations of the Euler equations are compared for the purpose of a gradient-based algorithm for optimization. One is the Lattice-Boltzmann method in one spatial dimension and five velocities (D1Q5 model) and the other is the relaxation method. An adjoint method is used. Good results are obtained even in the case where the solution contains discontinuities such as shock waves or contact discontinuities.