Incremental incomplete LU factorizations with applications

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of computing preconditioners for solving linear systems of equations with a sequence of slowly varying matrices. This problem arises in many important applications. For example, a common situation in computational fluid dynamics, is when the equations change only slightly, possibly in some parts of the physical domain. In such situations it is wasteful to recompute entirely any LU or ILU factorizations computed for the previous coefficient matrix. A number of techniques for computing incremental ILU factorizations are examined. For example we consider methods based on approximate inverses as well as alternating techniques for updating the factors L and U of the factorization. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.