Lagrangian finite element analysis applied to viscous free surface fluid flow

A new Lagrangian finite element formulation is presented for time-dependent incompressible free surface fluid flow problems described by the Navier-Stokes equations. The partial differential equations describing the continuum motion of the fluid are discretized using a Galerkin procedure in conjunction with the finite element approximation. Triangular finite elements are used to represent the dependent variables of the problem. An effective time integration procedure is introduced and provides a viable computational method for solving problems with equality of representation of the pressure and velocity fields. Its success has been attributed to the strict enforcement of the continuity constraint at every stage of the iterative process. The capabilities of the analysis procedure and the computer programs are demonstrated through the solution of several problems in viscous free surface fluid flow. Comparisons of results are presented with previous theoretical, numerical and experimental results.     

Singular finite elements for the sudden-expansion and the die-swell problems

The singular finite element method is used to solve the sudden-expansion and the die-swell problems in order to improve the accuracy of the solution in the vicinity of the singularity and to speed up the convergence. The method requires minor modifications to standard finite element schemes, and even coarse meshes give more accurate results than refined ordinary finite element meshes. Improved normal stress results for the sudden-expansion problem have been obtained for various Reynolds numbers up to 100 using the singular elements constructed for the creeping flow problem. In addition, the normal stresses at the walls appear to be insensitive to the singularity powers used in the construction of the singular basis functions. The die-swell problem is solved using the singular elements constructed for the stick–slip problem. The singular elements accelerate the convergence of the free surface dramatically.     

AN EULERIAN FINITE ELEMENT METHOD FOR TIME-DEPENDENT FREE SURFACE PROBLEMS IN HYDRODYNAMICS

A numerical method based on the finite element method is presented for simulating the two-dimensional transient motion of a viscous liquid with free surfaces. For ease of numerical treatment of the free surface expressed by a multiple-valued function, the marker particle method is employed. Numerous virtual particles are spread over all regions occupied by liquid. They move about on a fixed finite element mesh with the liquid velocity at their positions. These particles contribute nothing to the dynamics of the liquid and only serve as markers of liquid regions. The velocity field within liquid regions is calculated by solving the Navier– Stokes equations and the equation of continuity by the finite element method based on quadrilateral elements. A detailed discussion is given of the methodological problems arising in the implementation of the marker particle method on an unstructured finite element mesh and of the solutions to these problems. The proposed method is demonstrated on three sample problems: the broken dam problem, the impact of a falling liquid drop on a still liquid and the entry of a rigid block into water. Good agreement has been obtained in the comparison of the present numerical results with available experimental data.     

The free surface flow of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids trapped by surface tension

In this paper the position of the free surface of a swirling fluid held in by surface tension is calculated by the finite element method. A new locally mass-conserving quadratic velocity, linear pressure triangular element is used to overcome non-physical solutions produced by the well known Taylor-Hood element.     

A Taylor-Galerkin Method for Modeling Unsteady Fluid Flow Under its Own Weight

The free fluid-surface of incompressible creeping flows is analyzed using a finite element method. A pseudo-concentration (PC) function is introduced to determine the position of the free surface. The Taylor-Galerkin finite element method (TGFEM) is applied to solve the equation of the PC function. Nine-node quadratic interpolation is used for both PC and velocity. The unsteady flows of fluids moving of their own weight are analyzed using the proposed method.     

A net inflow method for incompressible viscous flow with moving free surface

A new finite element procedure called the net inflow method has been developed to simulate time-dependent incompressible viscous flow including moving free surfaces and inertial effects. As a fixed mesh approach with triangular element, the net inflow method can be used to analyse the free surface flow in both regular and irregular domains. Most of the empty elements are excluded from the computational domain, which is adjusted successively to cover the entire region occupied by the liquid. The volume of liquid in a control volume is updated by integrating the net inflow of liquid during each iteration. No additional kinetic equation or material marker needs to be considered. The pressure on the free surface and in the liquid region can be solved explicitly with the continuity equation or implicitly by using the penalty function method. The radial planar free surface flow near a 2D point source and the dam-breaking problem on either a dry bed or a still liquid have been analysed and presented in this paper. The predictions agree very well with available analytical solutions, experimental measurements and/or other numerical results.     

A finite element method for free surface flows of incompressible fluids in three dimensions. Part II. Dynamic wetting lines

To date, few researchers have solved three‐dimensional free surface problems with dynamic wetting lines. This paper extends the free surface finite element method (FEM) described in a companion paper [Cairncross RA, Schunk PR, Baer TA, Sackinger PA, Rao RR. A finite element method for free surface flows of incompressible fluid in three dimensions. Part I. Boundary fitted mesh motion. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids 2000; 33 : 375–403] to handle dynamic wetting. A generalization of the technique used in two‐dimensional modeling to circumvent double‐valued velocities at the wetting line, the so‐called kinematic paradox, is presented for a wetting line in three dimensions. This approach requires the fluid velocity normal to the contact line to be zero, the fluid velocity tangent to the contact line to be equal to the tangential component of web velocity, and the fluid velocity into the web to be zero. In addition, slip is allowed in a narrow strip along the substrate surface near the dynamic contact line. For realistic wetting line motion, a contact angle that varies with wetting speed is required because contact lines in three dimensions typically advance or recede at different rates depending upon location and/or have both advancing and receding portions. The theory is applied to capillary rise of static fluid in a corner, the initial motion of a Newtonian droplet down an inclined plane, and extrusion of a Newtonian fluid from a nozzle onto a moving substrate. The extrusion results are compared with experimental visualization. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The group velocity of some numerical schemes

The performances of various numerical schemes used to model hyperbolic/parabolic equations have been studied by the calculation of their numerical group velocities. Numerical experiments conducted with one dimensional linear and quadratic Lagrangian finite elements with a Crank-Nicolson finite differencing in time confirm the results of the analysis. The group velocity analysis supplements the well-known amplitude and phase portraits introduced by Leendertse¹ and helps explain the occurrence and behaviour of numerical oscillations in both finite difference and finite element schemes.     

A control volume finite element method for three-dimensional three-phase flows

A novel control volume finite element method with adaptive anisotropic unstructured meshes is presented for three-dimensional three-phase flows with interfacial tension. The numerical framework consists of a mixed control volume and finite element formulation with a new P₁DG-P₂ elements (linear discontinuous velocity between elements and quadratic continuous pressure between elements). A “volume of fluid” type method is used for the interface capturing, which is based on compressive control volume advection and second-order finite element methods. A force-balanced continuum surface force model is employed for the interfacial tension on unstructured meshes. The interfacial tension coefficient decomposition method is also used to deal with interfacial tension pairings between different phases. Numerical examples of benchmark tests and the dynamics of three-dimensional three-phase rising bubble, and droplet impact are presented. The results are compared with the analytical solutions and previously published experimental data, demonstrating the capability of the present method.     

An accurate finite element scheme with moving meshes for computing 3D‐axisymmetric interface flows

An accurate finite element scheme for computing 3D‐axisymmetric incompressible free surface and interface flows is proposed. It is based on the arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) approach using free surface/interface‐resolved moving meshes. Key features like the surface force, consisting of surface tension and the local curvature, and jumps in the density and viscosity over different fluid phases are precisely incorporated in the finite element formulation. The local curvature is approximated by using the Laplace–Beltrami operator technique combined with a boundary approximation by isoparametric finite elements. A new approach is used to derive the 3D‐axisymmetric form from the variational form in 3D‐Cartesian coordinates. Several test examples show the high accuracy and the robustness of the proposed scheme. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Hermite finite element method for incompressible fluid flow

We describe some Hermite stream function and velocity finite elements and a divergence‐free finite element method for the computation of incompressible flow. Divergence‐free velocity bases defined on (but not limited to) rectangles are presented, which produce pointwise divergence‐free flow fields (∇· u _h≡0). The discrete velocity satisfies a flow equation that does not involve pressure. The pressure can be recovered as a function of the velocity if needed. The method is formulated in primitive variables and applied to the stationary lid‐driven cavity and backward‐facing step test problems. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An orthogonal mapping technique for the computation of a viscous free-surface flow

In this paper we describe finite element computations of the free-surface flow of a viscous fluid down an undulating inclined plane. The technique developed here employs an orthogonal mapping that is computed along with the velocity and pressure. This is allied to a technique to compute symbolically the Jacobian and other derivatives required for numerical continuation methods. The solutions obtained are compared with laboratory experiments and finite element computations reported by Pritchard and co-workers. The finite element computational method used by these authors employs spines to represent the free surface. An excellent agreement is shown to exist between the new computations and the laboratory experiments, and with the numerical solutions of Pritchard and co-workers.     

Oblique water entry of a cone by a fully three-dimensional nonlinear method

The hydrodynamic problem of a cone entering the water surface obliquely has been analyzed by the three-dimensional (3-D) incompressible velocity potential theory with the fully nonlinear boundary conditions on the moving free surface and body surface boundary. The time stepping method is used in the stretched coordinate system defined as the ratio of the physical system to the distance that the cone has travelled into water. The boundary element method is used to solve the potential at each time step. Both triangular element mesh and quadrilateral element mesh have been used. Discretisation of the body surface and the free surface is applied regularly during the simulation to account for their change and deformation, and data from the old mesh is transferred into the new one through interpolation. Both the dynamic and kinematic free surface boundary conditions are satisfied through the Eulerian form. In particular the free surface elevation and potential variation are traced at a given azimuth of the cylindrical coordinate system, in the direction parallel to the body surface or perpendicular to the free surface to avoid multi-valued function. Detailed convergence study with respect to time step and element size has been undertaken and high accuracy has been achieved. Results for the cone in vertical entry are compared with those obtained from the 2-D axisymmetric method and good agreement is found. Simulations are made for cones of various deadrise angles and different oblique entries and detailed results are provided.     

Three‐dimensional finite element analysis of transient fluid flow with free‐surface using marker surface method and adaptive grid refinement

For three‐dimensional finite element analysis of transient fluid flow with free‐surface, a new marker surface method is proposed, in which the fluid flow is represented by the marker surface composed of marker elements instead of marker particles used in the marker particle method. This also involves an adaptive grid that is created under a new criterion of element categorization of filling states and the locations in the total region at each time step. The marker surface is used in order to represent the free‐surface accurately, as well as to decrease the memory and computation time, and to effectively display the predicted three‐dimensional free‐surface. By using the adaptive grid in which the elements, finer than those in internal and external regions, are distributed in the surface region through refinement and coarsening procedures, the analysis of three‐dimensional transient fluid flow with free‐surface is achieved more efficiently. Through three‐dimensional analysis of two kinds of problems using several grids, the efficiency of the proposed marker surface method and the adaptive grid are verified. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Three‐dimensional sloshing: A consistent finite element approach

This paper presents a new computational methodology based on Legendre's polynomials to predict the slosh and acoustic motion in nearly incompressible fluids in both rigid and flexible structures with free surface. Here, we have used a finite element formulation based on Lagrangian frame of reference to model the fluid motion derived using Hamiltonian equation of the fluid system. We formulated three hexahedral finite elements based on strain fields expressed in terms of extended Legendre's polynomials. Sloshing and acoustic motion of liquid is investigated using these newly formulated elements and inf–sup test is performed on these new elements to check the performance of these elements in modeling sloshing under two severe constraints, namely incompressibility and irrotationality. Comparisons of slosh and acoustic frequencies, and mode shapes with exact solutions are given. Dynamic analysis with earthquake and harmonic kind of forcing function is carried out to validate the formulated hexahedral elements to analyze the sloshing response. Numerical results obtained with these new finite elements, and with the present finite element formulation of the mathematical model agree well with the exact solution and as well as with published experimental literature. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of special finite elements for free boundaries

A modified two-dimensional quadrilateral plane stress element and a modified three-dimensional brick element have been developed to eliminate the weakness of the conventional finite elements in determining the stress distributions along free boundaries. The results obtained by the said modified elements are in good agreement with the theoretical and experimental results and are superior to the conventional finite element results. A comparison is made between the proposed approach of improving stress calculations and another approach which employs the least square fitting method. The comparison shows that the two approaches provide comparable accuracy but the latter is more difficult to implement.     

Large eddy simulation of incompressible free round jet with discontinuous Galerkin method

In the paper, discontinuous Galerkin method is applied to simulation of incompressible free round turbulent jet using large eddy simulation with eddy viscosity approach. The solution algorithm is based on the classical projection method, but instead of the solution of the Poisson equation, a parabolic equation is advanced in pseudo‐time, which provides the pressure field ensuring the proper pressure–velocity coupling. For time and pseudo‐time integration, explicit Runge–Kutta method is employed. The computational meshes consist of hexahedral elements with flat faces. Within a given finite element, all flow variables are expressed with modal expansions of the same order (including velocity and pressure). Discretisation of the viscous terms in the Navier–Stokes equations and Laplacian in the Poisson equation is stabilised with mixed finite element approach. The correctness of the solution algorithm is verified in a commonly used test case of laminar flow in 3D lid‐driven cavity. The results of computations of the free jet are compared with experimental and numerical reference data, the latter obtained from the high‐order pseudospectral code. The statistics of centerline flow velocity – mean velocity and its fluctuations – show satisfactory agreement with the reference data. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Hybrid Boundary/Finite Element Method for Simulating Viscous Flows and Shapes of Droplets in Electric Fields

A mixed boundary element and finite element numerical algorithm for the simultaneous prediction of the electric fields, viscous flow fields, thermal fields and surface deformation of electrically conducting droplets in an electrostatic field is described in this paper. The boundary element method is used for the computation of the electric potential distribution. This allows the boundary conditions at infinity to be directly incorporated into the boundary integral formulation, thereby obviating the need for discretization at infinity. The surface deformation is determined by solving the normal stress balance equation using the weighted residuals method. The fluid flow and thermal fields are calculated using the mixed finite element method. The computational algorithm for the simultaneous prediction of surface deformation and fluid flow involves two iterative loops, one for the electric field and surface deformation and the other for the surface tension driven viscous flows. The two loops are coupled through the droplet surface shapes for viscous fluid flow calculations and viscous stresses for updating the droplet shapes. Computing the surface deformation in a separate loop permits the freedom of applying different types of elements without complicating procedures for the internal flow and thermal calculations. Tests indicate that the quadratic, cubic spline and spectral boundary elements all give approximately the same accuracy for free surface calculations; however, the quadratic elements are preferred as they are easier to implement and also require less computing time. Linear elements, however, are less accurate. Numerical simulations are carried out for the simultaneous solution of free surface shapes and internal fluid flow and temperature distributions in droplets in electric fields under both microgravity and earthbound conditions. Results show that laser heating may induce a non-uniform temperature distribution in the droplets. This non-uniform thermal field results in a variation of surface tension along the surface of the droplet, which in turn produces a recirculating fluid flow in the droplet. The viscous stresses cause additional surface deformation by squeezing the surface areas above and below the equator plane.     

Resonant reflection of a surface acoustic wave from strip waveguides

A numerical study is performed of the oblique reflection of a surface acoustic wave from a strip of finite width deposited on the surface of a half-infinite substrate. The finite element method is used. If the strip–substrate contact supports waveguide modes with the velocity exceeding the surface wave velocity on the free surface of the substrate, then an interval of angles of incidence exists where the surface wave efficiently excites a waveguide mode. The excitation of the waveguide mode is accompanied by a singular behavior of the reflection and the transmission coefficients. The dependence of the magnitude and the phase of the coefficients on the angle of incidence, the frequency, the width and the thickness of the strip is examined. In particular, it is found that the magnitude of the reflection coefficient abruptly almost vanishes and abruptly increases almost to unity within the resonance interval of angles of incidence.