Adaptive mesh strategy applied to turbulent flows

An adaptive mesh procedure controlled by an error estimate for the Navier–Stokes equations is developed. The mesh can be refined but also coarsened by the mean of an agglomeration algorithm. The error estimation is based on an equation for the discretization error with a source term approximated by the use of a higher order discretized operator. The whole procedure is applied to a turbulent flow around a square-cross section cylinder. The efficiency of the method, evaluated in terms of CPU time and number of cells, shows interesting gains compared to single mesh computations. To cite this article: A. Hay, M. Visonneau, C. R. Mecanique 333 (2005).     

Fourth‐order compact formulation of Navier–Stokes equations and driven cavity flow at high Reynolds numbers

A new fourth‐order compact formulation for the steady 2‐D incompressible Navier–Stokes equations is presented. The formulation is in the same form of the Navier–Stokes equations such that any numerical method that solve the Navier–Stokes equations can easily be applied to this fourth‐order compact formulation. In particular, in this work the formulation is solved with an efficient numerical method that requires the solution of tridiagonal systems using a fine grid mesh of 601 × 601. Using this formulation, the steady 2‐D incompressible flow in a driven cavity is solved up to Reynolds number with Re = 20 000 fourth‐order spatial accuracy. Detailed solutions are presented. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A finite volume unstructured multigrid method for efficient computation of unsteady incompressible viscous flows

An unstructured non‐nested multigrid method is presented for efficient simulation of unsteady incompressible Navier–Stokes flows. The Navier–Stokes solver is based on the artificial compressibility approach and a higher‐order characteristics‐based finite‐volume scheme on unstructured grids. Unsteady flow is calculated with an implicit dual time stepping scheme. For efficient computation of unsteady viscous flows over complex geometries, an unstructured multigrid method is developed to speed up the convergence rate of the dual time stepping calculation. The multigrid method is used to simulate the steady and unsteady incompressible viscous flows over a circular cylinder for validation and performance evaluation purposes. It is found that the multigrid method with three levels of grids results in a 75% reduction in CPU time for the steady flow calculation and 55% reduction for the unsteady flow calculation, compared with its single grid counterparts. The results obtained are compared with numerical solutions obtained by other researchers as well as experimental measurements wherever available and good agreements are obtained. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Deconvolution‐based nonlinear filtering for incompressible flows at moderately large Reynolds numbers

We consider a Leray model with a deconvolution‐based indicator function for the simulation of incompressible fluid flow at moderately large Reynolds number (in the range of a few thousands) with under‐resolved meshes. For the implementation of the model, we adopt a three‐step algorithm called evolve–filter–relax that requires (i) the solution of a Navier–Stokes problem, (ii) the solution of a Stokes‐like problem to filter the Navier–Stokes velocity field, and (iii) a final relaxation step. We take advantage of a reformulation of the evolve–filter–relax algorithm as an operator‐splitting method to analyze the impact of the filter on the final solution versus a direct simulation of the Navier–Stokes equations. In addition, we provide some direction for tuning the parameters involved in the model based on physical and numerical arguments. Our approach is validated against experimental data for fluid flow in an idealized medical device (consisting of a conical convergent, a narrow throat, and a sudden expansion, as recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration). Numerical results are in good quantitative agreement with the measured axial components of the velocity and pressures for two different flow rates corresponding to turbulent regimes, even for meshes with a mesh size more than 40 times larger than the smallest turbulent scale. After several numerical experiments, we perform a preliminary sensitivity analysis of the computed solution to the parameters involved in the model. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Abridged Continuous Data Assimilation for the 2D Navier–Stokes Equations Utilizing Measurements of Only One Component of the Velocity Field

We introduce a continuous data assimilation (downscaling) algorithm for the two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations employing coarse mesh measurements of only one component of the velocity field. This algorithm can be implemented with a variety of finitely many observables: low Fourier modes, nodal values, finite volume averages, or finite elements. We provide conditions on the spatial resolution of the observed data, under the assumption that the observed data is free of noise, which are sufficient to show that the solution of the algorithm approaches, at an exponential rate asymptotically in time, to the unique exact unknown reference solution, of the 2D Navier–Stokes equations, associated with the observed (finite dimensional projection of) velocity.     

Simulation of viscous water column collapse using adapting hierarchical grids

An adaptive hierarchical grid‐based method for predicting complex free surface flows is used to simulate collapse of a water column. Adapting quadtree grids are combined with a high‐resolution interface‐capturing approach and pressure‐based coupling of the Navier–Stokes equations. The Navier–Stokes flow solution scheme is verified for simulation of flow in a lid‐driven cavity at Re=1000. Two approaches to the coupling of the Navier–Stokes equations are investigated as are alternative face velocity and hanging node interpolations. Collapse of a water column as well as collapse of a water column and its subsequent interaction with an obstacle are simulated. The calculations are made on uniform and adapting quadtree grids, and the accuracy of the quadtree calculations is shown to be the same as those made on the equivalent uniform grids. Results are in excellent agreement with experimental and other numerical data. A sharp interface is maintained at the free surface. The new adapting quadtree‐based method achieves a considerable saving in the size of the computational grid and CPU time in comparison with calculations made on equivalent uniform grids. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An aspect ratio agglomeration multigrid for unstructured grids

A robust aspect ratio‐based agglomeration algorithm to generate high quality of coarse grids for unstructured and hybrid grids is proposed in this paper. The algorithm focuses on multigrid techniques for the numerical solution of Euler and Navier–Stokes equations, which conform to cell‐centered finite volume special discretization scheme, combines vertex‐based isotropic agglomeration and cell‐based directional agglomeration to yield large increases in convergence rates. Aspect ratio is used as fusing weight to capture the degree of cell convexity and give an indication of cell stretching. Agglomeration front queue is established to propagate inward from the boundaries, which stores isotropic vertex and also high‐stretched cell marked with different flag according to aspect ratio. We conduct the present method to solve Euler and Navier–Stokes equations on unstructured and hybrid grids and compare the results with single grid as well as MGridGen, which shows that the present method is efficient in reducing computational time for large‐scale system equations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Computation of unsteady transonic flow over a fighter wing using a zonal Navier–Stokes/full‐potential method

An improved hybrid method for computing unsteady compressible viscous flows is presented. This method divides the computational domain into two zones. In the inner zone, the Navier–Stokes equations are solved using a diagonal form of an alternating‐direction implicit (ADI) approximate factorisation procedure. In the outer zone, the unsteady full‐potential equation (FPE) is solved. The two zones are tightly coupled so that steady and unsteady flows may be efficiently solved. Characteristic‐based viscous/inviscid interface boundary conditions are employed to avoid spurious reflections at that interface. The resulting CPU times are about 60% of the full Navier–Stokes CPU times for unsteady flows in non‐vector processing machines. Applications of the method are presented for a F‐5 wing in steady and unsteady transonic flows. Steady surface pressures are in very good agreement with experimental data and are essentially identical to the full Navier–Stokes predictions. Density contours show that shocks cross the viscous/inviscid interface smoothly, so that the accuracy of full Navier–Stokes equations can be retained with significant savings in computational time. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Footbridge between finite volumes and finite elements with applications to CFD

The aim of this paper is to introduce a new algorithm for the discretization of second‐order elliptic operators in the context of finite volume schemes on unstructured meshes. We are strongly motivated by partial differential equations (PDEs) arising in computational fluid dynamics (CFD), like the compressible Navier–Stokes equations. Our technique consists of matching up a finite volume discretization based on a given mesh with a finite element representation on the same mesh. An inverse operator is also built, which has the desirable property that in the absence of diffusion, one recovers exactly the finite volume solution. Numerical results are also provided. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the implicit time integration of semi‐discrete viscous fluxes on unstructured dynamic meshes

Numerical simulations of viscous flow problems with complex moving and/or deforming boundaries commonly require the solution of the corresponding fluid equations of motion on unstructured dynamic meshes. In this paper, a systematic investigation of the importance of the choice of the mesh configuration for evaluating the viscous fluxes is performed when the semi‐discrete Navier–Stokes equations are time‐integrated using the popular second‐order implicit backward difference algorithm. The findings are illustrated with the simulation of a laminar viscous flow problem around an oscillating airfoil. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the efficiency of linearization schemes and coupled multigrid methods in the simulation of a 3D flow around a cylinder

This paper studies the efficiency of two ways to treat the non‐linear convective term in the time‐dependent incompressible Navier–Stokes equations and of two multigrid approaches for solving the arising linear algebraic saddle point problems. The Navier–Stokes equations are discretized by a second‐order implicit time stepping scheme and by inf–sup stable, higher order finite elements in space. The numerical studies are performed at a 3D flow around a cylinder. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive mesh refinement and load balancing based on multi-level block-structured Cartesian mesh

We developed a framework for a distributed-memory parallel computer that enables dynamic data management for adaptive mesh refinement and load balancing. We employed simple data structure of the building cube method (BCM) where a computational domain is divided into multi-level cubic domains and each cube has the same number of grid points inside, realising a multi-level block-structured Cartesian mesh. Solution adaptive mesh refinement, which works efficiently with the help of the dynamic load balancing, was implemented by dividing cubes based on mesh refinement criteria. The framework was investigated with the Laplace equation in terms of adaptive mesh refinement, load balancing and the parallel efficiency. It was then applied to the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations to simulate a turbulent flow around a sphere. We considered wall-adaptive cube refinement where a non-dimensional wall distance y⁺ near the sphere is used for a criterion of mesh refinement. The result showed the load imbalance due to y⁺ adaptive mesh refinement was corrected by the present approach. To utilise the BCM framework more effectively, we also tested a cube-wise algorithm switching where an explicit and implicit time integration schemes are switched depending on the local Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) condition in each cube.     

A stabilized finite element method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations using a hierarchical basis

Stabilized finite element methods have been shown to yield robust, accurate numerical solutions to both the compressible and incompressible Navier–Stokes equations for laminar and turbulent flows. The present work focuses on the application of higher‐order, hierarchical basis functions to the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations using a stabilized finite element method. It is shown on a variety of problems that the most cost‐effective simulations (in terms of CPU time, memory, and disk storage) can be obtained using higher‐order basis functions when compared with the traditional linear basis. In addition, algorithms will be presented for the efficient implementation of these methods within the traditional finite element data structures. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A hybrid vortex method for the simulation of three‐dimensional flows

This paper presents an integral vorticity method for solving three‐dimensional Navier–Stokes equations. A finite volume scheme is implemented to solve the vorticity transport equation, which is discretized on a structured hexahedral mesh. A vortex sheet algorithm is used to enforce the no‐slip boundary condition through a vorticity flux at the boundary. The Biot–Savart integral is evaluated to compute the velocity field, in conjunction with a fast algorithm based on multipole expansion. This method is applied to the simulation of uniform flow past a sphere. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation of sharp gas–liquid interface using VOF method and adaptive grid local refinement around the interface

The volume of fluid (VOF) method is used to perform two‐phase simulations (gas–liquid). The governing Navier–Stokes conservation equations of the flow field are numerically solved on two‐dimensional axisymmetric or three‐dimensional unstructured grids, using Cartesian velocity components, following the finite volume approximation and a pressure correction method. A new method of adaptive grid local refinement is developed in order to enhance the accuracy of the predictions, to capture the sharp gas–liquid interface and to speed up the calculations. Results are compared with experimental measurements in order to assess the efficiency of the method. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A 3D incompressible Navier–Stokes velocity–vorticity weak form finite element algorithm

The velocity–vorticity formulation is selected to develop a time‐accurate CFD finite element algorithm for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in three dimensions.The finite element implementation uses equal order trilinear finite elements on a non‐staggered hexahedral mesh. A second order vorticity kinematic boundary condition is derived for the no slip wall boundary condition which also enforces the incompressibility constraint. A biconjugate gradient stabilized (BiCGSTAB) sparse iterative solver is utilized to solve the fully coupled system of equations as a Newton algorithm. The solver yields an efficient parallel solution algorithm on distributed‐memory machines, such as the IBM SP2. Three dimensional laminar flow solutions for a square channel, a lid‐driven cavity, and a thermal cavity are established and compared with available benchmark solutions. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

APPLICATION OF FLUX-VECTOR-SPLITTING SCHEME TO A DILUTE GAS–PARTICLE JPL NOZZLE FLOW

A time-dependent numerical algorithm is developed for the two-fluid model Euler of TLNS (thin layer Navier–Stokes) equations. The analysis is based on a MUSCL (monotone upstream central scheme for conservation laws)-type flux-vector-splitting scheme with the multi-level technique. This algorithm is applied to investigate JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) nozzle flow. Calculated results for both one- and two-phase flows are given to show the accuracy, the computational efficiency and the particle influence on the flow field.     

Finite element modified method of characteristics for the Navier–Stokes equations

An algorithm based on the finite element modified method of characteristics (FEMMC) is presented to solve convection–diffusion, Burgers and unsteady incompressible Navier–Stokes equations for laminar flow. Solutions for these progressively more involved problems are presented so as to give numerical evidence for the robustness, good error characteristics and accuracy of our method. To solve the Navier–Stokes equations, an approach that can be conceived as a fractional step method is used. The innovative first stage of our method is a backward search and interpolation at the foot of the characteristics, which we identify as the convective step. In this particular work, this step is followed by a conjugate gradient solution of the remaining Stokes problem. Numerical results are presented for:

• a Convection–diffusion equation. Gaussian hill in a uniform rotating field.
• b Burgers equations with viscosity.
• c Navier–Stokes solution of lid‐driven cavity flow at relatively high Reynolds numbers.
• d Navier–Stokes solution of flow around a circular cylinder at Re=100.

Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parallel solution of three‐dimensional Marangoni flow in liquid bridges

This paper describes the implementation and performances of a parallel solver for the direct numerical simulation of the three‐dimensional and time‐dependent Navier–Stokes equations on distributed‐memory, massively parallel computers. The feasibility of this approach to study Marangoni flow instability in half zone liquid bridges is examined. The results indicate that the incompressible, non‐linear Navier–Stokes problem, governing the Marangoni flows behavior, can effectively be parallelized on a distributed memory parallel machine by remapping the distributed data structure. The numerical code is based on a three‐dimensional Simplified Marker and Cell (SMAC) primitive variable method applied to a staggered finite difference grid. Using this method, the problem is split into two problems, one parabolic and the other elliptic A parallel algorithm, explicit in time, is utilized to solve the parabolic equations. A parallel multisplitting kernel is introduced for the solution of the pseudo pressure elliptic equation, representing the most time‐consuming part of the algorithm. A grid‐partition strategy is used in the parallel implementations of both the parabolic equations and the multisplitting elliptic kernel. A Message Passing Interface (MPI) is coded for the boundary conditions; this protocol is portable to different systems supporting this interface for interprocessor communications. Numerical experiments illustrate good numerical properties and parallel efficiency. In particular, good scalability on a large number of processors can be achieved as long as the granularity of the parallel application is not too small. However, increasing the number of processors, the Speed‐Up is ever smaller than the ideal linear Speed‐Up. The communication timings indicate that complex practical calculations, such as the solutions of the Navier–Stokes equations for the numerical simulation of the instability of Marangoni flows, can be expected to run on a massively parallel machine with good efficiency. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.