Comparing Numerical Methods for Simulating Convection in Giant Planets

As the first step toward developing a 3-D hydrodynamic code capable of modeling convection through the interior of giant planets and stellar bodies, two different 2-D hydrodynamic codes are compared for cases within the same turbulent thermal convection regime at high resolution. The first code uses spectral and finite differencing methods to solve the differential equations. The second, newer code employs the finite volume method to solve the same equations, but requires many more elements to achieve the same accuracy. The two codes are compared in a series of benchmark cases to verify that the finite volume method is returning results consistent with the spectral method.