On the accuracy and efficiency of CFD methods in real gas hypersonics

A study of viscous and inviscid hypersonic flows using generalized upwind methods is presented. A new family of hybrid flux-splitting methods is examined for hypersonic flows. The hybrid method is constructed by the superposition of the flux-vector-splitting (FVS) method and second-order artificial dissipation in the regions of strong shock waves. The conservative variables on the cell faces are calculated by an upwind extrapolation scheme to third-order accuracy. A second-order-accurate scheme is used for the discretization of the viscous terms. The solution of the system of equations is achieved by an implicit unfactored method. In order to reduce the computational time, a local adaptive mesh solution (LAMS) method is proposed. The LAMS method combines the mesh-sequencing technique and local solution of the equations. The local solution of either the Euler or the NAVIER-STOKES equations is applied for the region of the flow field where numerical disturbances die out slowly. Validation of the Euler and NAVIER-STOKES codes is obtained for hypersonic flows around blunt bodies. Real gas effects are introduced via a generalized equation of state.     

An approach of dynamic mesh adaptation for simulating 3‐dimensional unsteady moving‐immersed‐boundary flows

In this paper, we present an approach of dynamic mesh adaptation for simulating complex 3‐dimensional incompressible moving‐boundary flows by immersed boundary methods. Tetrahedral meshes are adapted by a hierarchical refining/coarsening algorithm. Regular refinement is accomplished by dividing 1 tetrahedron into 8 subcells, and irregular refinement is only for eliminating the hanging points. Merging the 8 subcells obtained by regular refinement, the mesh is coarsened. With hierarchical refining/coarsening, mesh adaptivity can be achieved by adjusting the mesh only 1 time for each adaptation period. The level difference between 2 neighboring cells never exceeds 1, and the geometrical quality of mesh does not degrade as the level of adaptive mesh increases. A predictor‐corrector scheme is introduced to eliminate the phase lag between adapted mesh and unsteady solution. The error caused by each solution transferring from the old mesh to the new adapted one is small because most of the nodes on the 2 meshes are coincident. An immersed boundary method named local domain‐free discretization is employed to solve the flow equations. Several numerical experiments have been conducted for 3‐dimensional incompressible moving‐boundary flows. By using the present approach, the number of mesh nodes is reduced greatly while the accuracy of solution can be preserved.     

A parallel unstructured dynamic mesh adaptation algorithm for 3‐D unsteady flows

An unstructured dynamic mesh adaptation and load balancing algorithm has been developed for the efficient simulation of three‐dimensional unsteady inviscid flows on parallel machines. The numerical scheme was based on a cell‐centred finite‐volume method and the Roe's flux‐difference splitting. Second‐order accuracy was achieved in time by using an implicit Jacobi/Gauss–Seidel iteration. The resolution of time‐dependent solutions was enhanced by adopting an h‐refinement/coarsening algorithm. Parallelization and load balancing were concurrently achieved on the adaptive dynamic meshes for computational speed‐up and efficient memory redistribution. A new tree data structure for boundary faces was developed for the continuous transfer of the communication data across the parallel subdomain boundary. The parallel efficiency was validated by applying the present method to an unsteady shock‐tube problem. The flows around oscillating NACA0012 wing and F‐5 wing were also calculated for the numerical verification of the present dynamic mesh adaptation and load balancing algorithm. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Two‐dimensional anisotropic Cartesian mesh adaptation for the compressible Euler equations

Simulating transient compressible flows involving shock waves presents challenges to the CFD practitioner in terms of the mesh quality required to resolve discontinuities and prevent smearing. This paper discusses a novel two‐dimensional Cartesian anisotropic mesh adaptation technique implemented for transient compressible flow. This technique, originally developed for laminar incompressible flow, is efficient because it refines and coarsens cells using criteria that consider the solution in each of the cardinal directions separately. In this paper, the method will be applied to compressible flow. The procedure shows promise in its ability to deliver good quality solutions while achieving computational savings. Transient shock wave diffraction over a backward step and shock reflection over a forward step are considered as test cases because they demonstrate that the quality of the solution can be maintained as the mesh is refined and coarsened in time. The data structure is explained in relation to the computational mesh, and the object‐oriented design and implementation of the code is presented. Refinement and coarsening algorithms are outlined. Computational savings over uniform and isotropic mesh approaches are shown to be significant. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Two‐dimensional implicit time‐dependent calculations on adaptive unstructured meshes with time evolving boundaries

An implicit multigrid‐driven algorithm for two‐dimensional incompressible laminar viscous flows has been coupled with a solution adaptation method and a mesh movement method for boundary movement. Time‐dependent calculations are performed implicitly by regarding each time step as a steady‐state problem in pseudo‐time. The method of artificial compressibility is used to solve the flow equations. The solution mesh adaptation method performs local mesh refinement using an incremental Delaunay algorithm and mesh coarsening by means of edge collapse. Mesh movement is achieved by modeling the computational domain as an elastic solid and solving the equilibrium equations for the stress field. The solution adaptation method has been validated by comparison with experimental results and other computational results for low Reynolds number flow over a shedding circular cylinder. Preliminary validation of the mesh movement method has been demonstrated by a comparison with experimental results of an oscillating airfoil and with computational results for an oscillating cylinder. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive mesh refinement for two-phase slug flows with an a priori indicator

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel adaptive mesh refinement AMR technique for computing unstable one dimensional two-phase flows in pipelines. In multiphase flows, the prediction and localisation of inter-facial waves, slugs and instabilities related to flow conditions under study require high levels of accuracy. This is more apparent in systems at industrial scales, where flow lines possess highly distorted regions and irregular topologies.Uniform fine meshes for these long devices are costly and in general situations the optimum space discretisation could not be determined a priori.Adaptive mesh refinement AMR procedure provides a remedy to this problem by refining the mesh locally, allowing to capture regions where sharp discontinuities and steep gradients are present. With appropriate algorithm and data organisation, AMR helps to reduce CPU time and speeds up simulations of flows in long pipes. The effectiveness of AMR methods relies on estimators that determine where refinement is required. We show in this work that for transient flows combining gradient-based error estimator with Kelvin–Helmholtz stability condition can improve the acceleration of computation and locate regions where refinements are required. The Kelvin–Helmholtz is a local condition and is an a priori indicator for the refinement.     

Numerical simulation of compressible two-phase flow using a diffuse interface method

In this article, a high-resolution diffuse interface method is investigated for simulation of compressible two-phase gas–gas and gas–liquid flows, both in the presence of shock wave and in flows with strong rarefaction waves similar to cavitations. A Godunov method and HLLC Riemann solver is used for discretization of the Kapila five-equation model and a modified Schmidt equation of state (EOS) is used to simulate the cavitation regions. This method is applied successfully to some one- and two-dimensional compressible two-phase flows with interface conditions that contain shock wave and cavitations. The numerical results obtained in this attempt exhibit very good agreement with experimental results, as well as previous numerical results presented by other researchers based on other numerical methods. In particular, the algorithm can capture the complex flow features of transient shocks, such as the material discontinuities and interfacial instabilities, without any oscillation and additional diffusion. Numerical examples show that the results of the method presented here compare well with other sophisticated modeling methods like adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) and local mesh refinement (LMR) for one- and two-dimensional problems.     

The direct simulation Monte Carlo method using unstructured adaptive mesh and its application

The implementation of an adaptive mesh‐embedding (h‐refinement) scheme using unstructured grid in two‐dimensional direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method is reported. In this technique, local isotropic refinement is used to introduce new mesh where the local cell Knudsen number is less than some preset value. This simple scheme, however, has several severe consequences affecting the performance of the DSMC method. Thus, we have applied a technique to remove the hanging node, by introducing the an‐isotropic refinement in the interfacial cells between refined and non‐refined cells. Not only does this remedy increase a negligible amount of work, but it also removes all the difficulties presented in the originals scheme. We have tested the proposed scheme for argon gas in a high‐speed driven cavity flow. The results show an improved flow resolution as compared with that of un‐adaptive mesh. Finally, we have used triangular adaptive mesh to compute a near‐continuum gas flow, a hypersonic flow over a cylinder. The results show fairly good agreement with previous studies. In summary, the proposed simple mesh adaptation is very useful in computing rarefied gas flows, which involve both complicated geometry and highly non‐uniform density variations throughout the flow field. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A gas‐kinetic scheme for the simulation of turbulent flows on unstructured meshes

This paper presents a numerical method for simulating turbulent flows via coupling the Boltzmann BGK equation with Spalart–Allmaras one equation turbulence model. Both the Boltzmann BGK equation and the turbulence model equation are carried out using the finite volume method on unstructured meshes, which is different from previous works on structured grid. The application of the gas‐kinetic scheme is extended to the simulation of turbulent flows with arbitrary geometries. The adaptive mesh refinement technique is also adopted to reduce the computational cost and improve the efficiency of meshes. To organize the unstructured mesh data structure efficiently, a non‐manifold hybrid mesh data structure is extended for polygonal cells. Numerical experiments are performed on incompressible flow over a smooth flat plate and compressible turbulent flows around a NACA 0012 airfoil using unstructured hybrid meshes. These numerical results are found to be in good agreement with experimental data and/or other numerical solutions, demonstrating the applicability of the proposed method to simulate both subsonic and transonic turbulent flows. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A volume-agglomeration multirate time advancing for high Reynolds number flow simulation

A frequent configuration in computational fluid mechanics combines an explicit time advancing scheme for accuracy purposes and a computational grid with a very small portion of much smaller elements than in the remaining mesh. Two examples of such situations are the travel of a discontinuity followed by a moving mesh, and the large eddy simulation of high Reynolds number flows around bluff bodies where together very thin boundary layers and vortices of much more important size need to be captured. For such configurations, multistage explicit time advancing schemes with global time stepping are very accurate but very CPU consuming. In order to reduce this problem, the multirate (MR) time stepping approach represents an interesting improvement. The objective of such schemes, which allow to use different time steps in the computational domain, is to avoid penalizing the computational cost of the time advancement of unsteady solutions that would become large due to the use of small global time steps imposed by the smallest elements such as those constituting the boundary layers. In the present work, a new MR scheme based on control volume agglomeration is proposed for the solution of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations equipped with turbulence models. The method relies on a prediction step where large time steps are performed with an evaluation of the fluxes on macrocells for the smaller elements for stability purpose and a correction step in which small time steps are employed. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are evaluated on several benchmarks flows: the problem of a moving contact discontinuity (inviscid flow), the computation with a hybrid turbulence model of flows around bluff bodies like a flow around a space probe model at Reynolds number 10⁶, a circular cylinder at Reynolds number 8.4 × 10⁶, and two tandem cylinders at Reynolds number 1.66 × 10⁵ and 1.4 × 10⁵.     

群速度控制格式及二维Riemann解

强激波和强接触间断的数值模拟一直是计算流体力学里一个富有挑战性的课题,它们是很多实际流动的基础。三阶迎风紧致格式是一种具有较高分辨率的高精度方法,但是在计算激波时仍有数值振荡产生。本文根据数值解的群速度特性,在三阶迎风紧致格式的基础上提出了一种群速度控制格式,使得能够正确模拟含有强激波和强接触间断的复杂流动。在此基础上构造了求解包含大压力比和密度比的二维界面问题的数值方法。计算结果表明,方法对激波和接触间断的分辨效果是令人满意的。     

A numerical study of shock-induced cavity collapse

The flow field resulting from the interaction between a planar incident shock in a solid and an embedded ellipsoidal gas cavity is examined computationally. The study is motivated by the need for improved understanding of the role of embedded cavities in the initiation of reaction in a heterogeneous explosive following the application of a shock. The system is modeled as a compressible multi-fluid flow with a sufficiently strong shock in the solid. A high-resolution, Godunov-type capturing scheme is employed to solve the governing equations numerically. The calculations are performed in parallel and use adaptive mesh refinement to obtain well-resolved solutions. The goal is to identify regions in which the shock-cavity interaction results in pressures that are substantially higher than the post-shock pressure that existed prior to the beginning of the interaction. Also of interest are the ways in which the magnitude of the elevated pressure, the extent and location of the regions where it develops, and the mechanisms that underlie such a development are influenced by the strength of the shock and the geometry of the cavity.     

A pressure‐based unstructured grid method for all‐speed flows

An all‐speed algorithm based on the SIMPLE pressure‐correction scheme and the ‘retarded‐density’ approach has been formulated and implemented within an unstructured grid, finite volume (FV) scheme for both incompressible and compressible flows, the latter involving interaction of shock waves. The collocated storage arrangement for all variables is adopted, and the checkerboard oscillations are eliminated by using a pressure‐weighted interpolation method, similar to that of Rhie and Chow [Numerical study of the turbulent flow past an airfoil with trailing edge separation. AIAA Journal 1983; 21 : 1525]. The solution accuracy is greatly enhanced when a higher‐order convection scheme combined with adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) are used. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

激波绕射碰撞加速诱导爆轰的数值模拟

基于单步化学反应的Euler方程和对激波(爆轰波)、接触间断具有良好捕捉效果的Roe/HLL混合格式以及自适应网格技术,模拟了激波在方形管中与方块障碍物相互作用,并发生绕射碰撞来诱导爆轰的过程.结果表明,弱激波在绕经方块时,形成上、下绕射激波并在方块尾部发生碰撞,生成局部高温高压点,可加快爆轰的形成;而当管内阻塞比超过...     

Shock waves from an open-ended shock tube with different shapes

A new method for decreasing the attenuation of a shock wave emerging from an open-ended shock tube exit into a large free space has been developed to improve the shock wave technique for cleaning deposits on the surfaces in industrial equipments by changing the tube exit geometry. Three tube exits (the simple tube exit, a tube exit with ring and a coaxial tube exit) were used to study the propagation processes of the shock waves. The detailed flow features were experimentally investigated by use of a two-dimensional color schlieren method and by pressure measurements. By comparing the results for different tube exits, it is shown that the expansion of the shock waves near the mouth can be restricted by using the tube exit with ring or the coaxial tube exit. Thus, the attenuation of the shock waves is reduced. The time histories of overpressure have illustrated that the best results are obtained for the coaxial tube exit. But the pressure signals for the tube exit with ring showed comparable results with the advantage of a relatively simple geometry. The flow structures of diffracting shock waves have also been simulated by using an upwind finite volume scheme based on a high order extension of Godunov's method as well as an adaptive unstructured triangular mesh refinement/unrefinement algorithm. The numberical results agree remarkably with the experimental ones.     

Symmetry breaking and preliminary results about a Hopf bifurcation for incompressible viscous flow in an expansion channel

This computational study shows, for the first time, a clear transition to two-dimensional Hopf bifurcation for laminar incompressible flows in symmetric plane expansion channels. Due to the well-known extreme sensitivity of this study on computational mesh, the critical Reynolds numbers for both the known symmetry-breaking (pitchfork) bifurcation and Hopf bifurcation were investigated for several layers of mesh refinement. It is found that under-refined meshes lead to an overestimation of the critical Reynolds number for the symmetry breaking and an underestimation of the critical Reynolds number for the Hopf bifurcation.     

Aerodynamic interference between high-speed slender bodies

Under supersonic flow conditions, slender bodies in close proximity induce aerodynamic interference effects. This paper aims to quantify the magnitude of the resulting interference loads and to understand the underlying flow-physics mechanisms that cause them. A pair of identical slender bodies are investigated through a series of wind-tunnel experiments and supporting computational fluid dynamics (CFD) predictions. The bodies induce a complex interference flowfield, which tends to be bespoke to each configuration. The flow features include impinging shock and expansion waves, conical shock reflections, strong skewing of the boundary-layer flows and shock diffraction. The effects of axial stagger, lateral separation and the strength of the primary disturbance flow field are evaluated. The interference loads are found to be most sensitive to the initial location of the primary disturbance but are also affected by its strength. In addition, maximum interference loads which equate to an effective incidence of up to 6° are observed. Finally, very good agreement is found between the measurements and the CFD predicted normal force and pitching moment.     

Analysis of aerodynamic problems with geometrically unspecified boundaries using an enhanced Lagrangian method

This paper presents solutions for several 2-D aerodynamic problems with geometrically unspecified boundaries. These solutions are obtained with an enhanced Lagrangian method based on stream function and Lagrangian-distance coordinates, which includes special procedures to substantially improve the numerical resolution of the shock waves and for the numerical implementation of the aerodynamic conditions defining the geometrically unspecified solid or fluid boundaries. The method is first validated for flows with specified solid boundaries by comparison with exact analytical solutions and with previous computational results obtained by numerical methods using Eulerian formulations. In all cases, this enhanced Lagrangian method displayed a very good accuracy and computational efficiency and a sharp numerical resolution of shock waves. Then this method is used to obtain solutions for problems with geometrically unspecified boundaries, such as: (i) indirect problems of determining the geometrical shape of airfoils and nozzle walls for a specified pressure distribution; (ii) supersonic nozzle design problem for a specified uniform flow at the nozzle outlet based on reflection-suppression condition; (iii) analysis of flexible-membrane airfoils; and (iv) analysis of jet-flapped airfoils.     

Development of circular function‐based gas‐kinetic scheme (CGKS) on moving grids for unsteady flows through oscillating cascades

In this paper, the circular function‐based gas‐kinetic scheme (CGKS), which was originally developed for simulation of flows on stationary grids, is extended to solve moving boundary problems on moving grids. Particularly, the unsteady flows through oscillating cascades are our major interests. The main idea of the CGKS is to discretize the macroscopic equations by the finite volume method while the fluxes at the cell interface are evaluated by locally reconstructing the solution of the continuous Boltzmann Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook equation. The present solver is based on the fact that the modified Boltzmann equation, which is expressed in a moving frame of reference, can recover the corresponding macroscopic equations with Chapman–Enskog expansion analysis. Different from the original Maxwellian function‐based gas‐kinetic scheme, in improving the computational efficiency, a simple circular function is used to describe the equilibrium state of distribution function. Considering that the concerned cascade oscillating problems belong to cases that the motion of surface boundary is known a priori, the dynamic mesh method is suitable and is adopted in the present work. In achieving the mesh deformation with high quality and efficiency, a hybrid dynamic mesh method named radial basic functions‐transfinite interpolation is presented and applied for cascade geometries. For validation, several numerical test cases involving a wide range are investigated. Numerical results show that the developed CGKS on moving grids is well applied for cascade oscillating flows. And for some cases where nonlinear effects are strong, the solution accuracy could be effectively improved by using the present method. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Block-based adaptive mesh refinement scheme using numerical density of entropy production for three-dimensional two-fluid flows

In this work, we present a fast and parallel finite volume scheme on unstructured meshes applied to complex fluid flow. The mathematical model is based on a three-dimensional compressible low Mach two-phase flows model, combined with a linearised ‘artificial pressure’ law. This hyperbolic system of conservation laws allows an explicit scheme, improved by a block-based adaptive mesh refinement scheme. Following a previous one-dimensional work, the useful numerical density of entropy production is used as mesh refinement criterion. Moreover, the computational time is preserved using a local time-stepping method. Finally, we show through several test cases the efficiency of the present scheme on two- and three-dimensional dam-break problems over an obstacle.