Elliptic grid generation methods for scattering from multiple obstacles

A novel finite difference time domain method for acoustic scattering on generalized curvilinear coordinates is briefly described. Scattering over two-dimensional complex regions consisting of multiple scatterers are analyzed. The grid generation algorithm decomposes regions with finite number of holes to contiguous single-hole subregions. Individual grids are obtained for each subregions and they are matched with smoothness across interfaces. The new algorithm is an extension to multiple obstacles of the technique introduced in [V. Villamizar, M. Weber, Boundary-Conforming Cordinates with Grid Line Control for Acoustic Scattering from Complexly Shaped Obstacles, Numer. Meth. Part Differ. Equ. 23 (2007) 1445–1467]. The method is successfully applied to approximate the pressure field resulting from the acoustic scattering of a plane wave from two complexly-shaped obstacles. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A Cartesian‐grid collocation method based on radial‐basis‐function networks for solving PDEs in irregular domains

This paper reports a new Cartesian‐grid collocation method based on radial‐basis‐function networks (RBFNs) for numerically solving elliptic partial differential equations in irregular domains. The domain of interest is embedded in a Cartesian grid, and the governing equation is discretized by using a collocation approach. The new features here are (a) one‐dimensional integrated RBFNs are employed to represent the variable along each line of the grid, resulting in a significant improvement of computational efficiency, (b) the present method does not require complicated interpolation techniques for the treatment of Dirichlet boundary conditions in order to achieve a high level of accuracy, and (c) normal derivative boundary conditions are imposed by means of integration constants. The method is verified through the solution of second‐ and fourth‐order PDEs; accurate results and fast convergence rates are obtained. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2007     

Barrier variational generation of quasi‐isometric grids

A grid generation method based on the minimization of the discrete barrier functional with feasible set consisting of quasi‐isometric grids is suggested. The deviation from isometry for given grid connectivity and prescribed boundary conditions is minimized via the contraction of the feasible set into a small vicinity of the optimal grid. Formulation of functional with given metrics in both physical and logical spaces allows to consider the adaptive grid generation in terms of quasi‐isometric grids and cover many practical applications. A fast and reliable grid untangling procedure based on the penalty‐like reformulation of barrier functional and the continuation technique is described. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the suggested functional produces high‐quality grids with small global condition numbers. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The heat equation to generate planar grids

An algorithm for the generation of quadrilateral grids on planar domains is presented. This algorithm is given by an iterative procedure, where, starting from an initial grid on the domain under consideration, the coordinates of the grid vertices are iteratively adjusted by using a local discrete variational approach. This procedure resembles the explicit difference scheme for a perturbed heat equation, where the perturbation can be dropped for convex domains. Experimental results on benchmark domains are presented, and show an interesting behavior of the proposed method.     

A New Exponential Compact Scheme for the Two-Dimensional Unsteady Nonlinear Burgers' and Navier-Stokes Equations in Polar Cylindrical Coordinates

In this article, a new compact difference scheme is proposed in exponential form to solve two-dimensional unsteady nonlinear Burgers' and Navier-Stokes equations of motion in polar cylindrical coordinates by using half-step discretization. At each time level by using only nine grid points in space, the proposed scheme gives accuracy of order four in space and two in time. The method is directly applicable to the equations having singularities at boundary points. Stability analysis is explained in detail and many benchmark problems like Burgers', Navier-Stokes and Taylor-vortex problems in polar cylindrical coordinates are solved to verify the accuracy and efficiency of the scheme.     

Variational method for adaptive mesh generation

A variational method is suggested for generating adaptive grids composed of hexahedral cells. The method is based on the minimization of a functional written on a manifold in a space whose variables are usual spatial coordinates in a physical domain and the components of a monitor vector function. A grid is constructed in the manifold, and its projection onto the physical domain yields an adaptive grid. Examples of adaptive grid generation are given.     

The definition and measurement of electromagnetic chirality

The notion of electromagnetic chirality, recently introduced in the Physics literature, is investigated in the framework of scattering of time‐harmonic electromagnetic waves by bounded scatterers. This type of chirality is defined as a property of the farfield operator. The relation of this novel notion of chirality to that of geometric chirality of the scatterer is explored. It is shown for several examples of scattering problems that geometric achirality implies electromagnetic achirality. On the other hand, a chiral material law, as for example given by the Drude‐Born‐Fedorov model, yields an electromagnetically chiral scatterer. Electromagnetic chirality also allows the definition of a measure. Scatterers invisible to fields of one helicity turn out to be maximally chiral with respect to this measure. For a certain class of electromagnetically chiral scatterers, we provide numerical calculations of the measure of chirality through solutions of scattering problems computed by a boundary element method.     

The use of infinite grid refinements at singularities in the solution of Laplace's equation

Summary The approximate solution of Laplace's equation using the finite element method is considered. Particular emphasis is given to problems in which there are boundary singularities and the use of infinite refinements in the grid of triangles in the neighbourhood of these singularities is analysed. A particular type of infinite grid refinement is proposed and some examples are given.     

First-order accurate finite difference schemes for boundary vorticity approximations in curvilinear geometries

In this work we develop first-order accurate, forward finite difference schemes for the first derivative on both a uniform and a non-uniform grid. The schemes are applied to the calculation of vorticity on a solid wall of a curvilinear, two-dimensional channel. The von Mises coordinates are used to transform the governing equations, and map the irregular domain onto a rectangular computational domain. Vorticity on the solid boundary is expressed in terms of the first partial derivative of the square of the speed of the flow in the computational domain, and the derived finite difference schemes are used to calculate the vorticity at the computational boundary grid points using combinations of up to five computational domain grid points. This work extends previous work (Awartani et al., 2005) [3] in which higher-order schemes were obtained for the first derivative using up to four computational domain grid points. The aim here is to shed further light onto the use of first-order accurate non-uniform finite difference schemes that are essential when the von Mises transformation is used. Results show that the best schemes are those that use a natural sequence of non-uniform grid points. It is further shown that for non-uniform grid with clustering near the boundary, solution deteriorates with increasing number of grid points used. By contrast, when a uniform grid is used, solution improves with increasing number of grid points used.     

A reduced domain strategy for local mesh movement application in unstructured grids

Automatic control of mesh movement is mandatory in many fluid flow and fluid-solid interaction problems. This paper presents a new strategy, called reduced domain strategy (RDS), which enhances the efficiency of node connectivity-based mesh movement methods and moves the unstructured grid locally and effectively. The strategy dramatically reduces the grid computations by dividing the unstructured grid into two active and inactive zones. After any local boundary movement, the grid movement is performed only within the active zone. To enhance the efficiency of our strategy, we also develop an automatic mesh partitioning scheme. This scheme benefits from a new quasi-structured mesh data ordering, which determines the boundary of active zone in the original unstructured grid very easily. Indeed, the new partitioning scheme eliminates the need for sequential reordering of the original unstructured grid data in different mesh movement applications. We choose the spring analogy method and apply our new strategy to perform local mesh movements in two boundary movement problems including a multi-element airfoil with moving slat or deforming main body section. We show that the RDS is robust and cost effective. It can be readily employed in different node connectivity-based mesh movement methods. Indeed, the RDS provides a flexible local grid deformation tool for moving grid applications.     

On 2D structured mesh generation by using mappings

A grid generation problem in two‐dimensional domains is considered by using a quasi‐conformal mapping of the parametric domain with a given square mesh onto the physical domain where the grid is required. To this end, a harmonic mapping is first applied, which, by the Radó theorem, is a diffeomorphism subject to some known conditions. However, the discrete harmonic mapping may produce folded meshes on a nonconvex domain with a strongly bent boundary. We demonstrate that it is caused by the truncation error. With the aim of controlling grid node location, an additional mapping is used. The Dirichlet problem for the universal elliptic partial differential equations is solved to construct the mapping. This allows to produce unfolded grids with a prescribed cell shape. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 27: 1072–1091, 2011     

Single cell finite difference approximations of O(kh2 + h4) for ∂u/∂x for one space dimensional nonlinear parabolic equation

We report a new two‐level explicit finite difference method of O(kh² + h⁴) using three spatial grid points for the numerical solution of for the solution of one‐space dimensional nonlinear parabolic partial differential equation subject to appropriate initial and Dirichlet boundary conditions. The method is shown to be unconditionally stable when applied to a linear equation. The proposed method is applicable to the problems both in cartesian and polar coordinates. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the method discussed. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 16: 408–415, 2000     

The equimaterial approach for the numerical solution of the one dimensional transient diffusion equation with zero flux boundary conditions

A new approach is proposed for the grid motion for the numerical solution of a general transient diffusion equation in one spatial dimension with zero flux boundary conditions. The new criterion for grid motion is that the solute amount contained in each discretization section should be a pre-described fraction of the total solute amount at each time step. This requirement is not explicitly enforced to the solution technique but it is implicitly included in the equation through the appropriate variable transformation. The results showed that although the technique leads to the required grid motion the numerical results are of pure quality due to the appearance of singularities during the variable transformation procedure. Nevertheless, it is shown that by appropriate numerical handling of the solution at the singularity region the technique can lead to accurate results and potentially can replace the existing moving grid algorithms at least for the particular problem at hand.     

Properties of grid boundary value problems for functions defined on grid cells and faces

Properties of a version of MFD method are studied for a grid problem on a polyhedral grid in which the grid scalars are defined on grid cells and the grid flows are specified by their local normal coordinates on the plane faces of cells. In a domain with curvilinear boundary, a grid inhomogeneous boundary value problem for stationary diffusion-type equations is considered. An operator statement of the grid problem is given, and a local approximation of the equations and boundary conditions is studied.     

Accuracy,robustness and efficiency comparison in iterative computation of convection diffusion equation with boundary layers

Nine‐point fourth‐order compact finite difference scheme, central difference scheme, and upwind difference scheme are compared for solving the two‐dimensional convection diffusion equations with boundary layers. The domain is discretized with a stretched nonuniform grid. A grid transformation technique maps the nonuniform grid to a uniform one, on which the difference schemes are applied. A multigrid method and a multilevel preconditioning technique are used to solve the resulting sparse linear systems. We compare the accuracy of the computed solutions from different discretization schemes, and demonstrate the relative efficiency of each scheme. Comparisons of maximum absolute errors, iteration counts, CPU timings, and memory cost are made with respect to the two solution strategies. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 16: 379–394, 2000     

Domain sensitivity analysis of the acoustic far‐field pattern

We consider acoustic scattering problems described by the mixed boundary value problem for the scalar Helmholtz equation in the exterior of a 2D bounded domain or in the exterior of a crack. The boundary of the domain is assumed to have a finite set of corner points where the scattered wave may have singular behaviour. The paper is concerned with the sensitivity of the far‐field pattern with respect to small perturbations of the shape of the scatterer. Using a modification of the method of adjoint problems, we obtain an integral representation for the Gâteaux derivative which contains only boundary values of functions easily computable by standard BEM and which depends explicitly on the perturbation of the boundary. In some cases, we show the direct influence of the singularities of the solution on the sensitivity of the far‐field pattern. In this way, we generalize the domain sensitivity analysis developed earlier for smooth domains by Hettlich, Kirsch, Kress, Potthast and others. Finally, we show that the same approach can be applied to scattering from 3D domains with smooth edges. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Symmetry,validation, and scattering matrices for time–domain scattering in waveguides

We outline a method to compute the solution in the frequency–domain for scattering in a waveguide by exploiting symmetry. The method is illustrated by considering a simple scattering example, where soft hard boundary conditions are alternated. We show how the straightforward mode matching or eigenfunction matching solution can be easily converted to scattering and transmission matrices when symmetry is exploited. We then show how the solution for two scatterers can be found explicitly, using symmetry which allows validation of our subsequent solution by scattering matrices. We also give a series of identities which the scattering matrix must satisfy for further numerical validation. Using these frequency–domain solutions we compute the time-domain scattering by incident Gaussian wave–packets.     

Efficient evaluation of highly oscillatory acoustic scattering surface integrals

We consider the approximation of some highly oscillatory weakly singular surface integrals, arising from boundary integral methods with smooth global basis functions for solving problems of high frequency acoustic scattering by three-dimensional convex obstacles, described globally in spherical coordinates. As the frequency of the incident wave increases, the performance of standard quadrature schemes deteriorates. Naive application of asymptotic schemes also fails due to the weak singularity. We propose here a new scheme based on a combination of an asymptotic approach and exact treatment of singularities in an appropriate coordinate system. For the case of a spherical scatterer we demonstrate via error analysis and numerical results that, provided the observation point is sufficiently far from the shadow boundary, a high level of accuracy can be achieved with a minimal computational cost.     

Numerical solution to a linearized KdV equation on unbounded domain

Exact absorbing boundary conditions for a linearized KdV equation are derived in this paper. Applying these boundary conditions at artificial boundary points yields an initial‐boundary value problem defined only on a finite interval. A dual‐Petrov‐Galerkin scheme is proposed for numerical approximation. Fast evaluation method is developed to deal with convolutions involved in the exact absorbing boundary conditions. In the end, some numerical tests are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method.© 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 2008     

Three-dimensional approximate local DtN boundary conditions for prolate spheroid boundaries

We propose a new class of approximate local DtN boundary conditions to be applied on prolate spheroidal-shaped exterior boundaries when solving problems of acoustic scattering by elongated obstacles. These conditions are: (a) exact for the first modes, (b) easy to implement and to parallelize, (c) compatible with the local structure of the computational finite element scheme, and (d) applicable to exterior ellipsoidal-shaped boundaries that are more suitable in terms of cost-effectiveness for surrounding elongated scatterers. We investigate analytically and numerically the effect of the frequency regime and the slenderness of the boundary on the accuracy of these conditions. We also compare their performance to the second-order absorbing boundary condition (BGT2) designed by Bayliss, Gunzburger and Turkel when expressed in prolate spheroid coordinates. The analysis reveals that, in the low-frequency regime, the new second-order DtN condition (DtN2) retains a good level of accuracy regardless of the slenderness of the boundary. In addition, the DtN2 boundary condition outperforms the BGT2 condition. Such superiority is clearly noticeable for large eccentricity values.