A Class of Nonsymmetric Preconditioners for Saddle Point Problems

Abstract

For the iterative solution of saddle point problems, a nonsymmetric preconditioner is studied which, with respect to the upper-left block of the system matrix, can be seen as a variant of SSOR. An idealized situation where SSOR is taken with respect to the skew-symmetric part plus the diagonal part of the upper-left block is analyzed in detail. Since action of the preconditioner involves solution of a Schur complement system, an inexact form of the preconditioner can be of interest. This results in an inner-outer iterative process. Numerical experiments with solution of linearized Navier-Stokes equations demonstrate the efficiency of the new preconditioner, especially when the upper-left block is far from symmetric.