A new volume of fluid method in three dimensions—Part II: Piecewise‐planar interface reconstruction with cubic‐Bézier fit

A new interface reconstruction method in 3D is presented. The method involves a conservative level‐contour reconstruction coupled to a cubic‐Bézier interpolation. The use of the proposed piecewise linear interface calculation (PLIC) reconstruction scheme coupled to a multidimensional time integration provides solutions of second‐order spatial and temporal accuracy. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed reconstruction algorithm are demonstrated through several tests, whose results are compared with those obtained with other recently proposed methods. An overall improvement in accuracy with respect to other recent methods has been achieved, along with a substantial reduction in the central processing unit time required. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Particle trajectory calculations with a two‐step three‐time level semi‐Lagrangian scheme well suited for curved flows

This study proposes a new two‐step three‐time level semi‐Lagrangian scheme for calculation of particle trajectories. The scheme is intended to yield accurate determination of the particle departure position, particularly in the presence of significant flow curvature. Experiments were performed both for linear and non‐linear idealized advection problems, with different flow curvatures. Results for simulations with the proposed scheme, and with three other semi‐Lagrangian schemes, and with an Eulerian method are presented. In the linear advection problem the two‐step three‐time level scheme produced smaller root mean square errors and more accurate replication of the angular displacement of a Gaussian hill than the other schemes. In the non‐linear advection experiments the proposed scheme produced, in general, equal or better conservation of domain‐averaged quantities than the other semi‐Lagrangian schemes, especially at large Courant numbers. In idealized frontogenesis simulations the scheme performed equally or better than the other schemes in the representation of sharp gradients in a scalar field. The two‐step three‐time level scheme has some computational overhead as compared with the other three semi‐Lagrangian schemes. Nevertheless, the additional computational effort was shown to be worthwhile, due to the accuracy obtained by the scheme in the experiments with large time steps. The most remarkable feature of the scheme is its robustness, since it performs well both for small and large Courant numbers, in the presence of weak as well strong flow curvatures. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive thermo-fluid moving boundary computations for interfacial dynamics

In this study,we present adaptive moving boundary computation technique with parallel implementation on a distributed memory multi-processor system for large scale thermo-fluid and interfacial flow computations.The solver utilizes Eulerian-Lagrangian method to track moving(Lagrangian) interfaces explicitly on the stationary(Eulerian) Cartesian grid where the flow fields are computed.We address the domain decomposition strategies of Eulerian-Lagrangian method by illustrating its intricate complexity of the computation involved on two different spaces interactively and consequently,and then propose a trade-off approach aiming for parallel scalability.Spatial domain decomposition is adopted for both Eulerian and Lagrangian domain due to easy load balancing and data locality for minimum communication between processors.In addition,parallel cell-based unstructured adaptive mesh refinement(AMR) technique is implemented for the flexible local refinement and even-distributed computational workload among processors.Selected cases are presented to highlight the computational capabilities,including Faraday type interfacial waves with capillary and gravitational forcing,flows around varied geometric configurations and induced by boundary conditions and/or body forces,and thermo-fluid dynamics with phase change.With the aid of the present techniques,large scale challenging moving boundary problems can be effectively addressed.     

A Petrov–Galerkin finite element model for one‐dimensional fully non‐linear and weakly dispersive wave propagation

A new finite element method is presented to solve one‐dimensional depth‐integrated equations for fully non‐linear and weakly dispersive waves. For spatial integration, the Petrov–Galerkin weighted residual method is used. The weak forms of the governing equations are arranged in such a way that the shape functions can be piecewise linear, while the weighting functions are piecewise cubic with C²‐continuity. For the time integration an implicit predictor–corrector iterative scheme is employed. Within the framework of linear theory, the accuracy of the scheme is discussed by considering the truncation error at a node. The leading truncation error is fourth‐order in terms of element size. Numerical stability of the scheme is also investigated. If the Courant number is less than 0.5, the scheme is unconditionally stable. By increasing the number of iterations and/or decreasing the element size, the stability characteristics are improved significantly. Both Dirichlet boundary condition (for incident waves) and Neumann boundary condition (for a reflecting wall) are implemented. Several examples are presented to demonstrate the range of applicabilities and the accuracy of the model. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

车桥耦合振动分析的两种常用插值方法比较

利用模态综合法分析车辆与桥梁之间的相互作用时,合理地构造桥梁的插值振型函数可以大幅提高计算精度.其中,分段三次Hermite插值函数和三次样条插值函数较为常用.为研究二者的异同,以简支梁桥为例分别采用这两种插值函数构造结构梁单元模型的一维插值振型函数和板单元模型的二维插值振型函数.基于以上两类插值振型函数,分析单自由度簧上质量匀速过桥时,桥梁的跨中位移、跨中梁底正应力和轮-桥接触力时程响应.结果表明:无论是一维问题还是二维问题,由三次样条插值法构造的插值振型函数与结构的实际振型较为吻合,计算结果具有较高的收敛性和精度.而要达到相同的精度,分段三次Hermite插值法则须加密单元网格,但其误差仅存在于独立网格内,不会累积放大.     

Tracking accuracy of a semi‐Lagrangian method for advection–dispersion modelling in rivers

There is an increasing need to improve the computational efficiency of river water quality models because: (1) Monte‐Carlo‐type multi‐simulation methods, that return solutions with statistical distributions or confidence intervals, are becoming the norm, and (2) the systems modelled are increasingly large and complex. So far, most models are based on Eulerian numerical schemes for advection, but these do not meet the requirement of efficiency, being restricted to Courant numbers below unity. The alternative of using semi‐Lagrangian methods, consisting of modelling advection by the method of characteristics, is free from any inherent Courant number restriction. However, it is subject to errors of tracking that result in potential phase errors in the solutions. The aim of this article is primarily to understand and estimate these tracking errors, assuming the use of a cell‐based backward method of characteristics, and considering conditions that would prevail in practical applications in rivers. This is achieved separately for non‐uniform flows and unsteady flows, either via theoretical considerations or using numerical experiments. The main conclusion is that, tracking errors are expected to be negligible in practical applications in both unsteady flows and non‐uniform flows. Also, a very significant computational time saving compared to Eulerian schemes is achievable. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A HIERARCHICAL PARALLEL COMPUTING APPROACH FOR STRUCTURAL STATIC FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

根据分布式存储并行计算机的体系结构特点,提出了一种结构静力有限元分层并行计算方法. 该方法在两级分区两次缩聚策略的基础上不仅实现了大量数据的分布式存储,提高了数据的内存访问速率;而且实现了计算过程的三层并行,有效提高了通信效率;此外,它还进一步降低了界面方程的规模,大幅度减少了界面方程的求解时间. 因此,它能够充分利用分布式存储并行计算机的体系结构特点提升大规模并行计算效率. 最后通过典型数值算例验证了该方法的正确性和有效性.     

Semi‐analytical method for departure point determination

A new method for departure point determination on Cartesian grids, the semi‐analytical upwind path line tracing (SUT) method, is presented and compared to two typical departure point determination methods used in semi‐Lagrangian advection schemes, the Euler method and the four‐step Runge–Kutta method. Rigorous comparisons of the three methods were conducted for a severely curving hypothetical flow field and for advective transport in the rotation of a Gaussian concentration hill. The SUT method was shown to have equivalent accuracy to the Runge–Kutta method but with significantly improved computational efficiency. Depending on the case being simulated, the SUT method provides either far greater or equivalent computational efficiency and more certain accuracy than the Euler method. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluation of the equilibrium Eulerian approach for the evolution of particle concentration in isotropic turbulence

In the current work, the accuracy of the equilibrium Eulerian approach in evolving the particulate concentration field is evaluated by comparing it against the Lagrangian approach, for varying particle response time and terminal velocity. In particular, we compare the statistics of preferential accumulation and gravitational settling of particles in a cubic box of isotropic turbulence. Twelve simulations corresponding to four values of nondimensional particle response time, τ_p=0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, and three values of nondimensional terminal velocity, |V_s|=0.5,2,4 are considered. The equilibrium Eulerian approach obviates the need to solve additional governing equations for the particle velocity field. It, however, involves evolution of the particle concentration field using the equilibrium Eulerian velocity field. A spectral diffusion term is included in the particle concentration equation to provide an essentially non-oscillatory behavior to the solution. There is good agreement between the equilibrium Eulerian and Lagrangian statistics for small particles. With increasing particle size, the equilibrium Eulerian approach tends to somewhat overestimate particle preferential concentration in regions of excess strain-rate over rotation-rate compared to the Lagrangian approach. Over the entire range of parameters considered, the equilibrium approach provides a good approximation to the actual mean and rms fluctuating settling velocities of the particle.     

Development of highly accurate interpolation method for mesh‐free flow simulations II. Application of CIVA method to incompressible flow simulations

This is the second report on the development of a highly accurate interpolation method, which is called cubic interpolation with volume/area (CIVA) co‐ordinates, for mesh‐free flow simulations. In this paper, the method of determining the c‐parameter of CIVA using a constant curvature condition is first considered for the two‐ and three‐dimensional cases. A computation of a three‐dimensional passive scalar advection problem is performed for accuracy verification and for comparison with widely used methods. Then, an application algorithm of the CIVA method respecting incompressible fluid simulation is presented. As the incompressible condition based on Lagrangian approaches causes problems, in this paper we consider the condition based on the conventional Eulerian approach. The CIVA‐based incompressible flow simulation algorithm enables a highly accurate simulation of many kinds of problems that have complicated geometries and involve complicated phenomena. To confirm the facts, numerical analyzes are executed for some benchmark problems, namely flow in a square cavity, free surface sloshing and moving boundary problems in complex geometries. The results show that the method achieves high accuracy and has high flexibility, even for the flows involving high Reynolds number, complicated geometries, moving boundaries and free surfaces. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

结构静力有限元分层并行计算方法

根据分布式存储并行计算机的体系结构特点,提出了一种结构静力有限元分层并行计算方法. 该方法在两级分区两次缩聚策略的基础上不仅实现了大量数据的分布式存储,提高了数据的内存访问速率;而且实现了计算过程的三层并行,有效提高了通信效率;此外,它还进一步降低了界面方程的规模,大幅度减少了界面方程的求解时间. 因此,它能够充分利用分布式存储并行计算机的体系结构特点提升大规模并行计算效率. 最后通过典型数值算例验证了该方法的正确性和有效性.      

Accurate numerical estimation of interphase momentum transfer in Lagrangian–Eulerian simulations of dispersed two-phase flows

The Lagrangian–Eulerian (LE) approach is used in many computational methods to simulate two-way coupled dispersed two-phase flows. These include averaged equation solvers, as well as direct numerical simulations (DNS) and large-eddy simulations (LES) that approximate the dispersed-phase particles (or droplets or bubbles) as point sources. Accurate calculation of the interphase momentum transfer term in LE simulations is crucial for predicting qualitatively correct physical behavior, as well as for quantitative comparison with experiments. Numerical error in the interphase momentum transfer calculation arises from both forward interpolation/approximation of fluid velocity at grid nodes to particle locations, and from backward estimation of the interphase momentum transfer term at particle locations to grid nodes. A novel test that admits an analytical form for the interphase momentum transfer term is devised to test the accuracy of the following numerical schemes: (1) fourth-order Lagrange Polynomial Interpolation (LPI-4), (3) Piecewise Cubic Approximation (PCA), (3) second-order Lagrange Polynomial Interpolation (LPI-2) which is basically linear interpolation, and (4) a Two-Stage Estimation algorithm (TSE). A number of tests are performed to systematically characterize the effects of varying the particle velocity variance, the distribution of particle positions, and fluid velocity field spectrum on estimation of the mean interphase momentum transfer term. Numerical error resulting from backward estimation is decomposed into statistical and deterministic (bias and discretization) components, and their convergence with number of particles and grid resolution is characterized. It is found that when the interphase momentum transfer is computed using values for these numerical parameters typically encountered in the literature, it can incur errors as high as 80% for the LPI-4 scheme, whereas TSE incurs a maximum error of 20%. The tests reveal that using multiple independent simulations and higher number of particles per cell are required for accurate estimation using current algorithms. The study motivates further testing of LE numerical methods, and the development of better algorithms for computing interphase transfer terms.     

Towards petascale spectral simulations for transition analysis in wall bounded flow

An efficient parallel spectral method for direct numerical simulations of transitional and turbulent flows is described in this paper. The parallelization is classically based on a bidimensional domain decomposition, but has been specifically developed for a solenoidal Fourier–Chebyshev spectral approximation where in one Fourier direction, the number of modes is very large compared with the two other directions. The approach therefore differs from classical libraries developed for cubic Fourier boxes. The strategy uses message‐passing interface (MPI) for message‐passing among nodes and is fairly portable. One of the originalities of this paper is the use of an efficient hybrid programming with MPI for internodes communications and a coarse grain parallelism using OpenMP for core shared‐memory computation, instead of the classical hybrid programming with MPI and a fine granularity parallelism at the loop level with OpenMP directives. This hybrid parallelism has been tested on the recent generation of high‐performance parallel supercomputers involving a few tens of cores per node. Performances are evaluated on different low‐frequency and high‐frequency processors massively parallel platforms. We demonstrate that spectral methods, which are known to be inherently ill‐fitted for the new generation of high‐performance distributed‐memory computers, can be implemented efficiently using this hybrid programming with good scalability and a very fast wall‐clock time per iteration. New numerical experiments are therefore now accessible on petascale computers, while keeping the attractive features of spectral methods such as accuracy, exponential convergence, computational efficiency and conservative properties. This is illustrated by a direct numerical simulation of the transition of the boundary layers developing from the entrance section of a plane channel and interacting to merge into a fully turbulent flow. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一类面向高阶精度自适应流动计算的流场插值方法

网格自适应技术和高阶精度数值方法是提升计算流体力学复杂问题适应能力的有效技术途径. 将这两项技术结合需要解决一系列技术难题, 其中之一是高阶精度流场插值. 针对高阶精度自适应流动计算, 提出一类高精度流场插值方法, 实现将前一迭代步网格中流场数值解插值到当前迭代步网格中, 以延续前一迭代步中的计算状态. 为实现流场插值过程中物理量守恒, 该方法先计算新旧网格的重叠区域, 然后将物理量从重叠区域的旧网格中转移到新网格中. 为满足高阶精度要求, 先采用k-exact最小二乘方法对旧网格上的数值解进行重构, 获得描述物理量分布的高阶多项式, 随后采用高阶精度高斯数值积分实现物理量精确地转移到新网格单元上. 最后, 通过一个具有精确解的数值算例和一个高阶精度自适应流动计算算例验证了本文算法的有效性. 第一个算例结果表明当网格规模固定不变时, 插值精度阶数越高, 插值误差越小; 第二个算例显示本文方法可以有效缩短高精度自适应流动计算的迭代收敛时间.      

基本解方法与边界节点法求解Helmholtz方程的比较研究

基本解方法和边界节点法是基于径向基函数的两种重要无网格边界离散数值技术。针对Helmholtz方程,本文比较研究这两种数值方法在不同计算区域问题上的计算精度、插值矩阵对称性、病态性及计算成本。数值试验结果表明,两种方法都可以有效求解边界数据准确的Helmholtz问题。在数值离散过程中,两种方法都可以通过调整配置点的位...     

Assessment of regularized delta functions and feedback forcing schemes for an immersed boundary method

We present an improved immersed boundary method for simulating incompressible viscous flow around an arbitrarily moving body on a fixed computational grid. To achieve a large Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy number and to transfer quantities between Eulerian and Lagrangian domains effectively, we combined the feedback forcing scheme of the virtual boundary method with Peskin's regularized delta function approach. Stability analysis of the proposed method was carried out for various types of regularized delta functions. The stability regime of the 4‐point regularized delta function was much wider than that of the 2‐point delta function. An optimum regime of the feedback forcing is suggested on the basis of the analysis of stability limits and feedback forcing gains. The proposed method was implemented in a finite‐difference and fractional‐step context. The proposed method was tested on several flow problems, including the flow past a stationary cylinder, inline oscillation of a cylinder in a quiescent fluid, and transverse oscillation of a circular cylinder in a free‐stream. The findings were in excellent agreement with previous numerical and experimental results. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A time splitting fictitious domain algorithm for fluid–structure interaction problems (A fictitious domain algorithm for FSI)

A Finite Element Method in mixed Eulerian and Lagrangian formulation is developed to allow direct numerical simulations of dynamical interaction between an incompressible fluid and a hyper-elastic incompressible solid. A Fictitious Domain Method is applied so that the fluid is extended inside the deformable solid volume and the velocity field in the entire computational domain is resolved in an Eulerian framework. Solid motion, which is tracked in a Lagrangian framework, is imposed through the body force acting on the fluid within the solid boundaries. Solid stress smoothing on the Lagrangian mesh is performed with the Zienkiewicz–Zhu patch recovery method. High-order Gaussian integration quadratures over cut elements are used in order to avoid sub-meshing within elements in the Eulerian mesh that are intersected by the Lagrangian grid. The algorithm is implemented and verified in two spatial dimensions by comparing with the well validated simulations of solid deformation in a lid driven cavity and periodic elastic wall deformation driven by a time-dependent flow. It shows good agreement with the numerical results reported in the literature. In 3-D the method is validated against previously reported numerical simulations of 3-D rhythmically contracting alveolated ducts.     

Towards High Performance Digital Volume Correlation

We develop speed and efficiency improvements to a three-dimensional (3D) digital volume correlation (DVC) algorithm, which measures displacement and strain fields throughout the interior of a material. Our goal is to perform DVC with resolution comparable to that achieved in 2D digital image correlation, in time that is commensurate with the image acquisition time. This would represent a significant improvement over the current state-of-the-art available in the literature. Using an X-ray micro-CT scanner, we can resolve features at the 5 micron scale, generating 3D images with up to 36 billion voxels. We compute twelve degrees-of-freedom at each correlation point and utilize tricubic spline interpolation to achieve high accuracy. We improve the algorithm’s speed and robustness through an improved coarse search, efficient implementation of spline interpolation, and using smoothing splines to address noisy image data. For DVC, the volume of data, number of correlation points, and work to solve each correlation point grow cubically. We therefore employ parallel computing to handle this tremendous increase in computational and memory requirements. We demonstrate the application of DVC using simulated deformations of 3D micro-CT scans of polymer samples with embedded particles forming an internal pattern.