Robust Preconditioning for Spare Linear Systems
1997
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Robust Preconditioning for Spare Linear Systems
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1997
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Abstract
Preconditioned iterative methods have become standard linear solvers in many applications, but their
limited robustness in some cases has hindered the ability to efficiently solve very large problems in
some areas. This thesis proposes several new preconditioning techniques that attempt to extend the
range of iterative methods, particularly to solving nonsymmetric and indefinite problems such as
those arising from incompressible computational fluid dynamics.
First, we present an iterative technique to compute sparse approximate inverse preconditioners.
This new technique produces approximate inverses comparable in quality with others in
the literature, but at a lower computational cost, and with a simpler method to determine good
sparsity patterns for the approximate inverse. This class of preconditioners is very attractive for
parallel computing and avoids the stability problems that may occur with incomplete LU (ILU)
preconditioners on nonsymmetric or indefinite matrices.
Next, we demonstrate more effective uses of approximate inverses than using them to precondition
the entire matrix. We show how to use approximate inverse techniques to construct block
preconditioners, particularly for the discrete fully-coupled incompressible Navier-Stokes equations
and matrices that are partitioned by nonoverlapping domain decomposition. Approximate inverse
techniques are used to generate sparse approximate solutions whenever these are needed in forming
the preconditioner. The storage requirements for these preconditioners are much less than for ILU
preconditioners for many tough, large-scale problems.
To try to improve ILU preconditioners, we experimentally analyze their causes of failure, particularly
on indefinite linear systems. We categorize the failure modes and design statistics that can
be routinely computed to monitor the factorization or determine the cause of failure. Through this
better understanding, we show how these causes of failure can sometimes be circumvented through
pivoting, reordering, scaling, perturbing diagonal elements, and preserving symmetric structure.
Finally, we present an object-oriented framework that implements some of the preconditioning
algorithms above. The framework allows different data structures for block matrices to be used
with the same preconditioners. Various methods are provided for inverting diagonal or pivot blocks,
possibly with an approximate inverse technique.
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Technical Report; 97-065
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Chow, Edmond. (1997). Robust Preconditioning for Spare Linear Systems. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/215351.
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