Third-order discrete unified gas kinetic scheme for continuum and rarefied flows: Low-speed isothermal case.

An efficient third-order discrete unified gas kinetic scheme (DUGKS) is presented in this paper for simulating continuum and rarefied flows. By employing a two-stage time-stepping scheme and the high-order DUGKS flux reconstruction strategy, third order of accuracy in both time and space can be achieved in the present method. It is also analytically proven that the second-order DUGKS is a special case of the present method. Compared with the high-order lattice Boltzmann equation-based methods, the present method is capable to deal with the rarefied flows by adopting the Newton-Cotes quadrature to approximate the integrals of moments. Instead of being constrained by the second order (or lower order) of accuracy in the time-splitting scheme as in the conventional high-order Runge-Kutta-based kinetic methods, the present method solves the original Boltzmann equation, which overcomes the limitation in time accuracy. Typical benchmark tests are carried out for comprehensive evaluation of the present method. It is observed in the tests that the present method is advantageous over the original DUGKS in accuracy and capturing delicate flow structures. Moreover, the efficiency of the present third-order method is also shown in simulating rarefied flows.