Reduced basis approximation and a posteriori error estimation for Stokes flows in parametrized geometries: roles of the inf-sup stability constants

In this paper we review and we extend the reduced basis approximation and a posteriori error estimation for steady Stokes flows in affinely parametrized geometries, focusing on the role played by the Brezzi's and Babuska's stability constants. The crucial ingredients of the methodology are a Galerkin projection onto a low-dimensional space of basis functions properly selected, an affine parametric dependence enabling to perform competitive Offline-Online splitting in the computational procedure and a rigorous a posteriori error estimation on field variables. The combination of these three factors yields substantial computational savings which are at the basis of an efficient model order reduction, ideally suited for real-time simulation and many-query contexts (e.g. optimization, control or parameter identification). In particular, in this work we focus on i) the stability of the reduced basis approximation based on the Brezzi's saddle point theory and the introduction of a supremizer operator on the pressure terms, ii) a rigorous a posteriori error estimation procedure for velocity and pressure fields based on the Babuska's inf-sup constant stability theory (including residuals calculations), iii) the computation of a lower bound of the stability constant, and iv) different options for the reduced basis spaces construction. We present some illustrative results for both interior and external steady Stokes flows in parametrized geometries representing two parametrized classical Poiseuille and Couette flows, a channel contraction and a simple flow control problem around a curved obstacle