A Well-Balanced Space-Time ALE Compact Gas-Kinetic Scheme for the Shallow Water Equations on Unstructured Meshes

Abstract: This study presents a high-order, space-time coupled arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) compact gas-kinetic scheme (GKS) for the shallow water equations on moving unstructured meshes. The proposed method preserves both the geometric conservation law (GCL) and the well-balanced property. Mesh motion effects are directly incorporated by formulating numerical fluxes that account for the spatial temporal nonuniformity of the flow field and the swept area of moving cell interfaces. This allows temporal updates to be performed on the physical moving mesh, avoiding data remapping. The compact GKS provides time accurate evolution of flow variables and fluxes, enabling the scheme to achieve second-order temporal accuracy within a single stage. To consistently treat bottom topography on moving meshes, an evolution equation for the topography is established and discretized using a compatible space-time scheme, in which the fluxes induced by mesh motion are computed accurately. Mathematical proofs demonstrating the GCL preserving and well-balanced properties of the proposed ALE formulation are also provided. For improved accuracy and robustness, a nonlinear fourth-order compact reconstruction technique is employed. A comprehensive set of numerical experiments verifies the scheme's theoretical properties and demonstrates its accuracy, stability, and effectiveness in simulating complex shallow-water flow problems.