Delayed mesh relaxation for multi-material ALE formulation

Multi-Material Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) finite element methods can solve large deformations in fast dynamic problems like explosions because the mesh motion can be independent of the material motion. However materials must flow between elements and this advection involves numerical dissipations. The rezoning mesh method presented in this paper was designed to reduce these numerical errors for shock wave propagation. The mesh moves to refine the elements near the shock front. This refinement limits the advection fluxes and so the numerical diffusion. This technique is applied to the numerical simulations of airblast problems for which a parameter controlling the mesh refinement is studied.     

A swept‐intersection‐based remapping method in a ReALE framework

A complete reconnection‐based arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ReALE) strategy devoted to the computation of hydrodynamic applications for compressible fluid flows is presented here. In ReALE, we replace the rezoning phase of classical ALE method by a rezoning where we allow the connectivity between cells of the mesh to change. This leads to a polygonal mesh that recovers the Lagrangian features in order to follow more efficiently the flow. Those reconnections allow to deal with complex geometries and high vorticity problems contrary to ALE method. For optimizing the remapping phase, we have modified the idea of swept‐integration‐based. The new method is called swept‐intersection‐based remapping method. We demonstrate that our method can be applied to several numerical examples representative of hydrodynamic experiments.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An efficient high order direct ALE ADER finite volume scheme with a posteriori limiting for hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics

In this paper, we present a new family of direct arbitrary–Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) finite volume schemes for the solution of hyperbolic balance laws on unstructured meshes in multiple space dimensions. The scheme is designed to be high‐order accurate both in space and time, and the mesh motion, which provides the new mesh configuration at the next time step, is taken into account in the final finite volume scheme that is based directly on a space‐time conservation formulation of the governing PDE system. To improve the computational efficiency of the algorithm, high order of accuracy in space is achieved using the a posteriori MOOD limiting strategy that allows the reconstruction procedure to be carried out with only one reconstruction stencil for any order of accuracy. We rely on an element‐local space‐time Galerkin finite element predictor on moving curved meshes to obtain a high‐order accurate one‐step time discretization, while the mesh velocity is computed by means of a suitable nodal solver algorithm that might also be supplemented with a local rezoning procedure to improve the mesh quality. Next, the old mesh configuration at time level tⁿ is connected to the new one at t^n + 1 by straight edges, hence providing unstructured space‐time control volumes, on the boundary of which the numerical flux has to be integrated. Here, we adopt a quadrature‐free integration, in which the space‐time boundaries of the control volumes are split into simplex sub‐elements that yield constant space‐time normal vectors and Jacobian matrices. In this way, the integrals over the simplex sub‐elements can be evaluated once and for all analytically during a preprocessing step. We apply the new high‐order direct ALE algorithm to the Euler equations of compressible gas dynamics (also referred to as hydrodynamics equations) as well as to the magnetohydrodynamics equations and we solve a set of classical test problems in two and three space dimensions. Numerical convergence rates are provided up to fifth order of accuracy in 2D and 3D for both hyperbolic systems considered in this paper. Finally, the efficiency of the new method is measured and carefully compared against the original formulation of the algorithm that makes use of a WENO reconstruction technique and Gaussian quadrature formulae for the flux integration: depending on the test problem, the new class of very efficient direct ALE schemes proposed in this paper can run up to ≈12 times faster in the 3D case. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A swept intersection‐based remapping method for axisymmetric ReALE computation

We use here a reconnection ALE (ReALE) strategy to solve hydrodynamic compressible flows in cylindrical geometries. The main difference between the classical ALE and the ReALE method is the rezoning step where we allow change in the topology. This leads for ReALE to a polygonal mesh, which follows more efficiently the flow. We present here a new displacement of generators in order to keep the Lagrangian features, which are usually lost using ALE with fixed topology. The reconnection capability allows to deal with complex geometries and high‐vorticity problems contrary to ALE method. The main difficulty of ReALE is the remapping step where we have to remap physical variables on a mesh with a different topology. For this step, a new remapping method based on a swept intersection algorithm has been developed in the case of planar geometries. We present here the extension of the swept intersection‐based remapping method to cylindrical geometries. We demonstrate that our method can be applied to several numerical examples up to problem representative of hydrodynamic experiments. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A novel twice-interpolation finite element method for solid mechanics problems

Formulation and numerical evaluation of a novel twice-interpolation finite element method （TFEM） is presented for solid mechanics problems. In this method, the trial function for Galerkin weak form is constructed through two stages of consecutive interpolation. The primary interpolation follows exactly the same procedure of standard FEM and is further reproduced according to both nodal values and averaged nodal gradients obtained from primary interpolation. The trial functions thus constructed have continuous nodal gradients and contain higher order polynomial without increasing total freedoms. Several benchmark examples and a real dam problem are used to examine the TFEM in terms of accuracy and convergence. Compared with standard FEM, TFEM can achieve significantly better accuracy and higher convergence rate, and the continuous nodal stress can be obtained without any smoothing operation. It is also found that TFEM is insensitive to the quality of the elemental mesh. In addition, the present TFEM can treat the incompressible material without any modification.     

An extended finite element method for the simulation of particulate viscoelastic flows

We present an extended finite element method (XFEM) for the direct numerical simulation of the flow of viscoelastic fluids with suspended particles. For moving particle problems, we devise a temporary arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) scheme which defines the mapping of field variables at previous time levels onto the computational mesh at the current time level. In this method, a regular mesh is used for the whole computational domain including both fluid and particles. A temporary ALE mesh is constructed separately and the computational mesh is kept unchanged throughout the whole computations. Particles are moving on a fixed Eulerian mesh without any need of re-meshing. For mesh refinements around the interface, we combine XFEM with the grid deformation method, in which nodal points are redistributed close to the interface while preserving the mesh topology. Our method is verified by comparing with the results of boundary fitted mesh problems combined with the conventional ALE scheme. The proposed method shows similar accuracy compared with boundary fitted mesh problems and superior accuracy compared with the fictitious domain method. If the grid deformation method is combined with XFEM, the required computational time is reduced significantly compared to uniform mesh refinements, while providing mesh convergent solutions. We apply the proposed method to the particle migration in rotating Couette flow of a Giesekus fluid. We investigate the effect of initial particle positions, the Weissenberg number, the mobility parameter of the Giesekus model and the particle size on the particle migration. We also show two-particle interactions in confined shear flow of a viscoelastic fluid. We find three different regimes of particle motions according to initial separations of particles.     

Efficient coupling of direct forcing immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann method and finite element method to simulate fluid-structure interactions

Fluid-structure interactions (FSI) of rigid and flexible bodies are simulated in this article. For the fluid flow, multidirect forcing immersed boundary method (IBM) is adopted to capture the moving boundary, and lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is used to evolve the flow field. Compared with our previous no-penetration IBM, less iterations are required in this work. In addition, larger velocity in lattice units can be used and the nonphysical force oscillations are suppressed due to the C³ 6-point kernel. Multi-relaxation-time collision operator and local grid refinement are also adopted in LBM to enhance the numerical stability and efficiency. To improve the efficiency of the FSI coupling algorithm, the mesh of the deformable structure can be coarser than the Lagrangian mesh using Newton-Cotes formulas to integrate the traction on the structure surface. A variety of benchmarks, including flow around a circular cylinder with Reynold number ranging from 20 to 200, forced oscillation of a circular cylinder, vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of an elastically mounted circular cylinder in two degrees of freedom, and VIV of an elastic cantilever beam attached to a circular cylinder, are carried out to evaluate the accuracy and stability of the present coupling algorithm. For the benchmark FSI problem considered in this article, a reduction of 54% of the calculation time is achieved using coarser structure mesh. As an application of the FSI coupling algorithm, the mechanism of an elastic beam in the wake of a circular cylinder is discussed.     

Combined swept region and intersection‐based single‐material remapping method

A typical arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian algorithm consists of a Lagrangian step, where the computational mesh moves with the fluid flow; a rezoning step, where the computational mesh is smoothed and repaired in case it gets too distorted; and a remapping step, where all fluid quantities are conservatively interpolated on this new mesh. In single‐material simulations, the remapping process can be represented in a flux form, with fluxes approximated by integrating a reconstructed function over intersections of neighboring computational cells on the original and rezoned computational mesh. This algorithm is complex and computationally demanding – Therefore, a simpler approach that utilizes regions swept by the cell edges during rezoning is often used in practice. However, it has been observed that such simplification can lead to distortion of the solution symmetry, especially when the mesh movement is not bound by such symmetry. For this reason, we propose an algorithm combining both approaches in a similar way that was proposed for multi‐material remapping (two‐step hybrid remap). Intersections and exact integration are employed only in certain parts of the computational mesh, marked by a switching function – Various different criteria are presented in this paper. The swept‐based method is used elsewhere in areas that are not marked. This way, our algorithm can retain the beneficial symmetry‐preserving capabilities of intersection‐based remapping while keeping the overall computational cost moderate.     

Mesh adaptation framework for embedded boundary methods for computational fluid dynamics and fluid-structure interaction

Embedded Boundary Methods (EBMs) are often preferred for the solution of Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) problems because they are reliable for large structural motions/deformations and topological changes. For viscous flow problems, however, they do not track the boundary layers that form around embedded obstacles and therefore do not maintain them resolved. Hence, an Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) framework for EBMs is proposed in this paper. It is based on computing the distance from an edge of the embedding computational fluid dynamics mesh to the nearest embedded discrete surface and on satisfying the y⁺ requirements. It is also equipped with a Hessian-based criterion for resolving flow features such as shocks, vortices, and wakes and with load balancing for achieving parallel efficiency. It performs mesh refinement using a parallel version of the newest vertex bisection method to maintain mesh conformity. Hence, while it is sufficiently comprehensive to support many discretization methods, it is particularly attractive for vertex-centered finite volume schemes where dual cells tend to complicate the mesh adaptation process. Using the EBM known as FIVER, this AMR framework is verified for several academic FSI problems. Its potential for realistic FSI applications is also demonstrated with the simulation of a challenging supersonic parachute inflation dynamics problem.     

High‐order ADER‐WENO ALE schemes on unstructured triangular meshes—application of several node solvers to hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics

In this paper, we present a class of high‐order accurate cell‐centered arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) one‐step ADER weighted essentially non‐oscillatory (WENO) finite volume schemes for the solution of nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws on two‐dimensional unstructured triangular meshes. High order of accuracy in space is achieved by a WENO reconstruction algorithm, while a local space–time Galerkin predictor allows the schemes to be high order accurate also in time by using an element‐local weak formulation of the governing PDE on moving meshes. The mesh motion can be computed by choosing among three different node solvers, which are for the first time compared with each other in this article: the node velocity may be obtained either (i) as an arithmetic average among the states surrounding the node, as suggested by Cheng and Shu, or (ii) as a solution of multiple one‐dimensional half‐Riemann problems around a vertex, as suggested by Maire, or (iii) by solving approximately a multidimensional Riemann problem around each vertex of the mesh using the genuinely multidimensional Harten–Lax–van Leer Riemann solver recently proposed by Balsara et al. Once the vertex velocity and thus the new node location have been determined by the node solver, the local mesh motion is then constructed by straight edges connecting the vertex positions at the old time level tⁿ with the new ones at the next time level t^{n + 1}. If necessary, a rezoning step can be introduced here to overcome mesh tangling or highly deformed elements. The final ALE finite volume scheme is based directly on a space–time conservation formulation of the governing PDE system, which therefore makes an additional remapping stage unnecessary, as the ALE fluxes already properly take into account the rezoned geometry. In this sense, our scheme falls into the category of direct ALE methods. Furthermore, the geometric conservation law is satisfied by the scheme by construction. We apply the high‐order algorithm presented in this paper to the Euler equations of compressible gas dynamics as well as to the ideal classical and relativistic magnetohydrodynamic equations. We show numerical convergence results up to fifth order of accuracy in space and time together with some classical numerical test problems for each hyperbolic system under consideration. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

采用二次等参体元时的接触判据

当二次等参体元用于分析接触问题时,接触面上节点集中接触力不同号给建立接触判据造成困难。本文建立了由节点集中接触力计算接触面上分布接触力节点值的方法,从而可顺利建立接触判据。此方法已成功应用于工程中的弹性固体接触问题分析,文末给出了一个计算实例。     

An immersed boundary method for fluid flows around rigid objects

In this paper, we present an immersed boundary method for solving fluid flow problems in the presence of static and moving rigid objects. A FEM is used starting from a base mesh that does not represent exactly rigid objects (non?body?conforming mesh). At each time step, the base mesh is locally modified to provide a new mesh fitting the boundary of the rigid objects. The mesh is also locally improved using edge swapping to enhance the quality of the elements. The Navier–Stokes equations are then solved on this new mesh. The velocity of moving objects is imposed through standard Dirichlet boundary conditions. We consider a number of test problems and compare the numerical solutions with those obtained on classical body?fitted meshes whenever possible. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fluid–solid interaction problems with thermal convection using the immersed element‐free Galerkin method

In this work, the immersed element‐free Galerkin method (IEFGM) is proposed for the solution of fluid–structure interaction (FSI) problems. In this technique, the FSI is represented as a volumetric force in the momentum equations. In IEFGM, a Lagrangian solid domain moves on top of an Eulerian fluid domain that spans over the entire computational region. The fluid domain is modeled using the finite element method and the solid domain is modeled using the element‐free Galerkin method. The continuity between the solid and fluid domains is satisfied by means of a local approximation, in the vicinity of the solid domain, of the velocity field and the FSI force. Such an approximation is achieved using the moving least‐squares technique. The method was applied to simulate the motion of a deformable disk moving in a viscous fluid due to the action of the gravitational force and the thermal convection of the fluid. An analysis of the main factors affecting the shape and trajectory of the solid body is presented. The method shows a distinct advantage for simulating FSI problems with highly deformable solids. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Strong-form framework for solving boundary value problems with geometric nonlinearity

In this paper, we present a strong-form framework for solving the boundary value problems with geometric nonlinearity, in which an incremental theory is developed for the problem based on the Newton-Raphson scheme. Conventionally, the finite element methods (FEMs) or weak-form based meshfree methods have often been adopted to solve geometric nonlinear problems. However, issues, such as the mesh dependency, the numerical integration, and the boundary imposition, make these approaches computationally inefficient. Recently, strong-form collocation methods have been called on to solve the boundary value problems. The feasibility of the collocation method with the nodal discretization such as the radial basis collocation method (RBCM) motivates the present study. Due to the limited application to the nonlinear analysis in a strong form, we formulate the equation of equilibrium, along with the boundary conditions, in an incremental-iterative sense using the RBCM. The efficacy of the proposed framework is numerically demonstrated with the solution of two benchmark problems involving the geometric nonlinearity. Compared with the conventional weak-form formulation, the proposed framework is advantageous as no quadrature rule is needed in constructing the governing equation, and no mesh limitation exists with the deformed geometry in the incremental-iterative process.     

A new approach for computing the steady state fluid–structure interaction response of periodic problems

A special type of fluid–structure interaction (FSI) problems are problems with periodic boundary conditions like in turbomachinery. The steady state FSI response of these problems is usually calculated with similar techniques as used for transient FSI analyses. This means that, when the fluid and structure problem are not simultaneously solved with a monolithic approach, the problem is partitioned into a fluid and structural part and that each time step coupling iterations are performed to account for strong interactions between the two sub-domains. This paper shows that a time-partitioned FSI computation can be very inefficient to compute the steady state FSI response of periodic problems. A new approach is introduced in which coupling iterations are performed on periodic level instead of per time step. The convergence behaviour can be significantly improved by implementing existing partitioned solution methods as used for time step coupling (TSC) algorithms in the time periodic coupling (TPC) framework. The new algorithm has been evaluated by comparing the convergence behaviour to TSC algorithms. It is shown that the number of fluid–structure evaluations can be considerably reduced when a TPC algorithm is applied instead of a TSC. One of the most appealing advantages of the TPC approach is that the structural problem can be solved in the frequency domain resulting in a very efficient algorithm for computing steady state FSI responses.     

Simulation of liquid sloshing in curved‐wall containers with arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian method

There are many challenges in the numerical simulation of liquid sloshing in horizontal cylinders and spherical containers using the finite element method of arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) formulation: tracking the motion of the free surface with the contact points, defining the mesh velocity on the curved wall boundary and updating the computational mesh. In order to keep the contact points slipping along the curved side wall, the shape vector in each time advancement is defined to modify the kinematical boundary conditions on the free surface. A special function is introduced to automatically smooth the nodal velocities on the curved wall boundary based on the liquid nodal velocities. The elliptic partial differential equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions can directly rezone the inner nodal velocities in more than a single freedom. The incremental fractional step method is introduced to solve the finite element liquid equations. The numerical results that stemmed from the algorithm show good agreement with experimental phenomena, which demonstrates that the ALE method provides an efficient computing scheme in moving curved wall boundaries. This method can be extended to 3D cases by improving the technique to compute the shape vector. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The fundamental equations in finite element method of coupled thermo-elastic plane problem

The fundamental equations in finite element method for unsteady temperature field elastic plane problem are derived on the bases of variational principle of coupled thermoelastic problems. In these derivations, elastic plane is divided into three nodes triangular elements, and time interval is divided into linear time elements, in which all the variables, including displacements and temperatures at various nodal points, are varied linearly with time. Two coupled sets of linear algebraic equations of all the unknown displacements and temperatures at every nodal point in every instant (i.e. the terminal values of time elements) are obtained. They are the fundamental equations of the said problem.The total energy in elastic body not only contains the potential energy and heat energy but also contains the kinetic energy, if the rate of change of temperature field with respect to the time in thermoelastic problem is large enough. And the change of displacement is included in the equations of heat conduction. For this reason the variational principle of coupled thermoelastic problems is employed. [1] In this paper, expressions of this principle for plane problems are given. The discretization is carried on then, and Hamilton's action and the potential action of heat flow of elements are derived. Finally they are assembled, so as to get the polar value of the action. And thus the groups of linear algebraic equations in matrix form are obtained.     

Numerical simulation of armored vehicles subjected to undercarriage landmine blasts

Landmine threats play a crucial role in the design of armored personnel carriers. Therefore, a reliable blast simulation methodology is valuable to the vehicle design development process. The first part of this study presents a parametric approach for the quantification of the important factors such as the incident overpressure, the reflected overpressure, the incident impulse, and the reflected impulse for the blast simulations that employ the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation. The effects of mesh resolution, mesh topology, and fluid-structure interaction (FSI) parameters are discussed. The simulation results are compared with the calculations of the more established CONventional WEaPons (CONWEP) approach based on the available experimental data. The initial findings show that the spherical topology provides advantages over the Cartesian mesh domains. Furthermore, the FSI parameters play an important role when coarse Lagrangian finite elements are coupled with fine Eulerian elements at the interface. The optimum mesh topology and the mesh resolution of the parametric study are then used in the landmine blast simulation. The second part of the study presents the experimental blast response of an armored vehicle subjected to a landmine explosion under the front left wheel in accordance with the NATO AEP-55 Standard. The results of the simulations show good agreement with the experimental measurements.     

Simulation of a pulsatile total artificial heart: Development of a partitioned Fluid Structure Interaction model

Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in the world. Due to a shortage in donor organs artificial hearts can be a bridge to transplantation or even serve as a destination therapy for patients with terminal heart insufficiency. A pusher plate driven pulsatile membrane pump, the Total Artificial Heart (TAH) ReinHeart, is currently under development at the Institute of Applied Medical Engineering of RWTH Aachen University.This paper presents the methodology of a fully coupled three-dimensional time-dependent Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) simulation of the TAH using a commercial partitioned block-Gauss–Seidel coupling package. Partitioned coupling of the incompressible fluid with the slender flexible membrane as well as a high fluid/structure density ratio of about unity led inherently to a deterioration of the stability (‘artificial added mass instability’). The objective was to conduct a stable simulation with high accuracy of the pumping process. In order to achieve stability, a combined resistance and pressure outlet boundary condition as well as the interface artificial compressibility method was applied. An analysis of the contact algorithm and turbulence condition is presented. Independence tests are performed for the structural and the fluid mesh, the time step size and the number of pulse cycles. Because of the large deformation of the fluid domain, a variable mesh stiffness depending on certain mesh properties was specified for the fluid elements. Adaptive remeshing was avoided. Different approaches for the mesh stiffness function are compared with respect to convergence, preservation of mesh topology and mesh quality. The resulting mesh aspect ratios, mesh expansion factors and mesh orthogonalities are evaluated in detail. The membrane motion and flow distribution of the coupled simulations are compared with a top-view recording and stereo Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurements, respectively, of the actual pump.