A wave appropriate discontinuity sensor approach for compressible flows

In this work, we propose a novel selective discontinuity sensor approach for numerical simulations of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations. Since transformation to characteristic space is already a common approach to reduce high-frequency oscillations during interpolation to cell interfaces, we exploit the characteristic wave structure of the Euler equations to selectively treat the various waves that the equations comprise. The approach uses the Ducros shock sensing criterion to detect and limit oscillations due to shocks while applying a different criterion to detect and limit oscillations due to contact discontinuities. Furthermore, the method is general in the sense that it can be applied to any method that employs characteristic transformation and shock sensors. However, in the present work, we focus on the gradient-based reconstruction family of schemes. A series of inviscid and viscous test cases containing various types of discontinuities are carried out. The proposed method is shown to markedly reduce high-frequency oscillations that arise due to improper treatment of the various discontinuities; i.e., applying the Ducros shock sensor in a flow where a strong contact discontinuity is present. Moreover, the proposed method is shown to predict similar volume-averaged kinetic energy and enstrophy profiles for the Taylor-Green vortex simulation compared to the base Ducros sensor, indicating that it does not introduce unnecessary numerical dissipation when there are no contact discontinuities in the flow.