An analysis of parasitic current generation in Volume of Fluid simulations

Parasitic currents are unphysical fluid motions generated when using implementations of the Continuum Surface Force technique to model surface tension forces in Eulerian-based multi-phase Computational Fluid Dynamics calculations. In this paper, we derive and validate a correlation for the magnitude of these currents as a function of the physical and numerical parameters used in a given simulation. We find that these currents may be limited by both the inertial and viscous terms in the Navier–Stokes equations, and that they do not decrease in magnitude with increased mesh refinement or decreased computational time step. The current magnitudes that would be generated when simulating a number of common physical systems are examined, and it is found that in some circumstances their magnitude is significant.     

Computational Simulation of Bone Remodeling using Design Space Topology Optimization

The law of bone remodeling, commonly referred to as Wolff's Law, asserts that the internal trabecular bone adapts to external loadings, reorienting with the principal stress trajectories to optimize mechanical efficiency creating a naturally optimum structure. The current study utilized an advanced structural optimization algorithm, called design space toptimization (DSO), to perform a three-dimensional computational bone remodeling simulation on the human proximal femur and analyse the results to determine the validity of Wolff's hypothesis. DSO optimizes the layout of material by iteratively distributing it into the areas of highest loading, while simultaneously changing the design domain to increase computational efficiency. The large-scale simulation utilized a 175 µm mesh resolution with over 23.3 million elements. The resulting anisotropic trabecular architecture was compared to both Wolff's trajectory hypothesis and natural femur samples from literature using radiography. The results qualitatively showed several anisotropic trabecular regions that were comparable to the natural human femur. The realistic simulated trabecular geometry suggests that the DSO method can accurately predict bone adaptation due to mechanical loading and that the proximal femur is an optimum structure as Wolff hypothesized. (© 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Model Adaptation Enriched with an Anisotropic Mesh Spacing for Nonlinear Equations: Application to Environmental and CFD Problems

Goal of this paper is to suitably combine a model with an anisotropic mesh adaptation for the numerical simulation of nonlinear advection-diffusion-reaction systems and incompressible flows in ecological and environmental applications. Using the reduced-basis method terminology, the proposed approach leads to a noticeable computational saving of the online phase with respect to the resolution of the reference model on nonadapted grids. The search of a suitable adapted model/mesh pair is to be meant, instead, in an offline fashion.     

Hybrid Surface Mesh Adaptation for Climate Modeling

Solution-driven mesh adaptation is becoming quite popular for spatial error control in the numerical simulation of complex computational physics applications, such as climate modeling. Typically, spatial adaptation is achieved by element subdivision （h adaptation） with a primary goal of resolving the local length scales of interest. A sec- ond, less-popular method of spatial adaptivity is called ＂mesh motion＂ （r adaptation）; the smooth repositioning of mesh node points aimed at resizing existing elements to capture the local length scales. This paper proposes an adaptation method based on a combination of both element subdivision and node point repositioning （rh adaptation）. By combining these two methods using the notion of a mobility function, the proposed approach seeks to increase the flexibility and extensibility of mesh motion algorithms while providing a somewhat smoother transition between refined regions than is pro- duced by element subdivision alone. Further, in an attempt to support the requirements of a very general class of climate simulation applications, the proposed method is designed to accommodate unstructured, polygonal mesh topologies in addition to the most popular mesh types.     

Cognitive model exploration and optimization: a new challenge for computational science

Parameter space exploration is a common problem tackled on large-scale computational resources. The most common technique, a full combinatorial mesh, is robust but scales poorly to the computational demands of complex models with higher dimensional spaces. Such models are routinely found in the modeling and simulation community. To alleviate the computational requirements, I have implemented two parallelized intelligent search and exploration algorithms: one based on adaptive mesh refinement and the other on regression trees. These algorithms were chosen because there is a dual interest in approaches that allow searching a parameter space for optimal values, as well as exploring the overall space in general. Both intelligent algorithms reduce computational costs at some expense to the quality of results, yet the regression tree approach was orders of magnitude faster than the other methodologies.     

Conservative semi‐Lagrangian advection on adaptive unstructured meshes

A conservative semi‐Lagrangian method is designed in order to solve linear advection equations in two space variables. The advection scheme works with finite volumes on an unstructured mesh, which is given by a Voronoi diagram. Moreover, the mesh is subject to adaptive modifications during the simulation, which serves to effectively combine good approximation quality with small computational costs. The required adaption rules for the refinement and the coarsening of the mesh rely on a customized error indicator. The implementation of boundary conditions is addressed. Numerical results finally confirm the good performance of the proposed conservative and adaptive advection scheme. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 20: 388–411, 2004     

A high accuracy hybrid method for two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations

A dual-mesh hybrid numerical method is proposed for high Reynolds and high Rayleigh number flows. The scheme is of high accuracy because of the use of a fourth-order finite-difference scheme for the time-dependent convection and diffusion equations on a non-uniform mesh and a fast Poisson solver DFPS2H based on the HODIE finite-difference scheme and algorithm HFFT [R.A. Boisvert, Fourth order accurate fast direct method for the Helmholtz equation, in: G. Birkhoff, A. Schoenstadt (Eds.), Elliptic Problem Solvers II, Academic Press, Orlando, FL, 1984, pp. 35–44] for the stream function equation on a uniform mesh. To combine the fast Poisson solver DFPS2H and the high-order upwind-biased finite-difference method on the two different meshes, Chebyshev polynomials have been used to transfer the data between the uniform and non-uniform meshes. Because of the adoption of a hybrid grid system, the proposed numerical model can handle the steep spatial gradients of the dependent variables by using very fine resolutions in the boundary layers at reasonable computational cost. The successful simulation of lid-driven cavity flows and differentially heated cavity flows demonstrates that the proposed numerical model is very stable and accurate within the range of applicability of the governing equations.     

Numerical analysis of a multiscale finite element scheme for the resolution of the stationary Schrödinger equation

A numerical method for the resolution of the one-dimensional Schrödinger equation with open boundary conditions was presented in N. Ben Abdallah and O. Pinaud (Multiscale simulation of transport in an open quantum system: resonances and WKB interpolation. J. Comp. Phys. 213(1), 288–310 (2006)). The main attribute of this method is a significant reduction of the computational cost for a desired accuracy. It is based particularly on the derivation of WKB basis functions, better suited for the approximation of highly oscillating wave functions than the standard polynomial interpolation functions. The present paper is concerned with the numerical analysis of this method. Consistency and stability results are presented. An error estimate in terms of the mesh size and independent on the wavelength λ is established. This property illustrates the importance of this method, as multiwavelength grids can be chosen to get accurate results, reducing by this manner the simulation time.     

An adaptive mesh method for 1D hyperbolic conservation laws

An adaptive method is developed for solving one-dimensional systems of hyperbolic conservation laws, which combines the rezoning approach with the finite volume weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) scheme. An a posteriori error estimate, used to equidistribute the mesh, is obtained from the differences between respective numerical solutions of 5th-order WENO (WENO5) and 3rd-order ENO (ENO3) schemes. The number of grids can be adaptively readjusted based on the solution structure. For higher efficiency, mesh readjustment is performed every few time steps rather than every time step. In addition, a high order conservative interpolation is used to compute the physical solutions on the new mesh from old mesh based on the finite volume ENO reconstruction. Extensive examples suggest that this adaptive method exhibits more accurate resolution of discontinuities for a similar level of computational time comparing with that on a uniform mesh.     

Two‐level discretization of the Navier‐Stokes equations with r‐Laplacian subgridscale viscosity

The r‐Laplacian has played an important role in the development of computationally efficient models for applications, such as numerical simulation of turbulent flows. In this article, we examine two‐level finite element approximation schemes applied to the Navier‐Stokes equations with r‐Laplacian subgridscale viscosity, where r is the order of the power‐law artificial viscosity term. In the two‐level algorithm, the solution to the fully nonlinear coarse mesh problem is utilized in a single‐step linear fine mesh problem. When modeling parameters are chosen appropriately, the error in the two‐level algorithm is comparable to the error in solving the fully nonlinear problem on the fine mesh. We provide rigorous numerical analysis of the two‐level approximation scheme and derive scalings which vary based on the coefficient r, coarse mesh size H, fine mesh size h, and filter radius δ. We also investigate the two‐level algorithm in several computational settings, including the 3D numerical simulation of flow past a backward‐facing step at Reynolds number Re = 5100. In all numerical tests, the two‐level algorithm was proven to achieve the same order of accuracy as the standard one‐level algorithm, at a fraction of the computational cost. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2011     

A high accuracy minimally invasive regularization technique for navier–stokes equations at high reynolds number

A method is presented, that combines the defect and deferred correction approaches to approximate solutions of Navier–Stokes equations at high Reynolds number. The method is of high accuracy in both space and time, and it allows for the usage of legacy codes a frequent requirement in the simulation of turbulent flows in complex geometries. The two‐step method is considered here; to obtain a regularization that is second order accurate in space and time, the method computes a low‐order accurate, stable, and computationally inexpensive approximation (Backward Euler with artificial viscosity) twice. The results are readily extendable to the higher order accuracy cases by adding more correction steps. Both the theoretical results and the numerical tests provided demonstrate that the computed solution is stable and the accuracy in both space and time is improved after the correction step. We also perform a qualitative test to demonstrate that the method is capable of capturing qualitative features of a turbulent flow, even on a very coarse mesh. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 33: 814–839, 2017     

The error‐minimization‐based rezone strategy for arbitrary Lagrangian‐Eulerian methods

The objective of the Arbitrary Lagrangian‐Eulerian (ALE) methodology for solving multidimensional fluid flow problems is to move the computational mesh, using the flow as a guide, to improve the robustness, accuracy and efficiency of a simulation. The main elements in the ALE simulation are an explicit Lagrangian phase, a rezone phase in which a new mesh is defined, and a remapping (conservative interpolation) phase, in which the Lagrangian solution is transferred to the new mesh. In most ALE codes, the main goal of the rezone phase is to maintain high quality of the rezoned mesh. In this article, we describe a new rezone strategy which minimizes the L₂ norm of the solution error and maintains smoothness of the mesh. The efficiency of the new method is demonstrated with numerical experiments. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2005     

A Lagrange multiplier/fictitious domain method for the numerical simulation of incompressible viscous flow around moving rigid bodies: (I) case where the rigid body motions are known a priori

We describe in this Note a method for the numerical simulation of incompressible viscous flow around moving rigid bodies; we suppose the rigid body motions a priori known. The computational technique takes advantage of a time discretization by operator splitting à la Marchuk-Yanenko and of a finite element space discretization on a fixed mesh, to combine a Lagrange multiplier/fictitious domain treatment of the rigid body motions with an L²-projection technique, to force the incompressibility condition. The results of numerical experiments concerning flow around moving disks at Reynolds number of the order of 100 are presented.     

A superconvergent fitted finite volume method for Black–Scholes equations governing European and American option valuation

We develop a superconvergent fitted finite volume method for a degenerate nonlinear penalized Black–Scholes equation arising in the valuation of European and American options, based on the fitting idea in Wang [IMA J Numer Anal 24 (2004), 699–720]. Unlike conventional finite volume methods in which the dual mesh points are naively chosen to be the midpoints of the subintervals of the primal mesh, we construct the dual mesh judiciously using an error representation for the flux interpolation so that both the approximate flux and solution have the second‐order accuracy at the mesh points without any increase in computational costs. As the equation is degenerate, we also show that it is essential to refine the meshes locally near the degenerate point in order to maintain the second‐order accuracy. Numerical results for both European and American options with constant and nonconstant coefficients will be presented to demonstrate the superconvergence of the method. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 31: 1190–1208, 2015     

Layered elastic solid method for the generation of unstructured dynamic mesh

The layered elastic solid method (LESM), a modified elastic solid method (ESM) was put forward in the present study. In LESM, the computational zone is divided into several layers and material properties of these layers, which stay a certain value in ESM, are changed with mesh deformation. The deformation capability of mesh in LESM is better than ESM and the quality of the mesh generated by LESM is superior to that generated by ESM when they undergo the same deformation. In ESM, the main influence factors on mesh quality and deformation capability are Poisson’s ratio and single-step rotation angle. In LESM, mesh quality and deformation capability reach a largest value with an increase in Young’s modulus. Meanwhile, the mesh can achieve a larger deformation capability when single-step rotation angle is 0.25°. Finally, numerical simulation on a two-dimensional aerofoil using LESM was carried out. It is found that the results of LESM show a better agreement with experiment results.     

Configurational-Force-Based Adaptive FE Solver for a Phase Field Model of Fracture

The computational modeling of failure mechanisms in solids due to fracture based on sharp crack discontinuities suffers in situations with complex crack topologies. This can be overcome by diffusive crack modeling, based on the introduction of a crack phase field as outlined in [1, 2]. Following these formulations, we outline a thermodynamically consistent framework for phase field models of crack propagation in elastic solids, develop incremental variational principles and, as an extension to [1, 2], consider their numerical implementations by an efficient h-adaptive finite element method. A key problem of the phase field formulation is the mesh density, which is required for the resolution of the diffusive crack patterns. To this end, we embed the computational framework into an adaptive mesh refinement strategy that resolves the fracture process zones. We construct a configurational-force-based framework for h-adaptive finite element discretizations of the gradient-type diffusive fracture model. We develop a staggered computational scheme for the solution of the coupled balances in physical and material space. The balance in the material space is then used to set up indicators for the quality of the finite element mesh and accounts for a subsequent h-type mesh refinement. The capability of the proposed method is demonstrated by means of a numerical example. (© 2010 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A multiresolution finite volume scheme for two-dimensional hyperbolic conservation laws

In this paper, high-resolution finite volume schemes are combined with an adaptive mesh technique inspired by multiresolution analysis to improve the computational efficiency for two-dimensional hyperbolic conservation laws. The method is conservative. Moreover, it is stable which is proven numerically in this paper. The computational grid is dynamically adapted so that higher spatial resolution is automatically allocated to regions where strong gradients are observed. Using this proposed scheme, we compute several two-dimensional model problems and a compressive rate ranging from about 5–10 is observed in all simulations.     

Finite element analysis of evaporative cutting with a moving high energy pulsed laser

A computational model for simulation of pulsed laser-cutting process has been developed using a finite element method. An unsteady heat transfer model is considered that deals with the material-cutting process using a Gaussian wave laser beam in a pulsed mode. An iterative scheme is used to handle the geometric nonlinearity due to the melting region. The convergence study with mesh refinements and time steps first identifies optimal mesh and time step for the present analyses. Numerical analyses are carried out on the amount of material removal and groove smoothness with laser power (LP) and number of pulses (NPS) while other laser cutting parameters are fixed. The results show that there exist threshold values in number of pulses and laser power in order to achieve two predetermined conditions: (1) amount of material removal and (2) smoothness of groove shape. These values form an envelope called threshold curve that separate the acceptable region from unacceptable one for quality pulsed laser cutting. The effect of velocity also leads to another threshold curve which is determined from both number of pulses and velocity. Finally, the convergence of results in error domain is shown oscillating due to geometric nonlinearity.     

Quantifying uncertainty with ensembles of surrogates for blackbox optimization

Blackbox optimization tackles problems where the functions are expensive to evaluate and where no analytical information is available. In this context, a tried and tested technique is to build surrogates of the objective and the constraints in order to conduct the optimization at a cheaper computational cost. This work introduces an extension to a specific type of surrogates: ensembles of surrogates, enabling them to quantify the uncertainty on the predictions they produce. The resulting extended ensembles of surrogates behave as stochastic models and allow the use of efficient Bayesian optimization tools. The method is incorporated in the search step of the mesh adaptive direct search (MADS) algorithm to improve the exploration of the search space. Computational experiments are conducted on seven analytical problems, two multi-disciplinary optimization problems and two simulation problems. The results show that the proposed approach solves expensive simulation-based problems at a greater precision and with a lower computational effort than stochastic models.

     

Parallel anisotropic mesh adaptivity with dynamic load balancing for cardiac electrophysiology

Simulations in cardiac electrophysiology generally use very fine meshes and small time steps to resolve highly localized wavefronts. This expense motivates the use of mesh adaptivity, which has been demonstrated to reduce the overall computational load. However, even with mesh adaptivity performing such simulations on a single processor is infeasible. Therefore, the adaptivity algorithm must be parallelised. Rather than modifying the sequential adaptive algorithm, the parallel mesh adaptivity method introduced in this paper focuses on dynamic load balancing in response to the local refinement and coarsening of the mesh. In essence, the mesh partition boundary is perturbed away from mesh regions of high relative error, while also balancing the computational load across processes. The parallel scaling of the method when applied to physiologically realistic heart meshes is shown to be good as long as there are enough mesh nodes to distribute over the available parallel processes. It is shown that the new method is dominated by the cost of the sequential adaptive mesh procedure and that the parallel overhead of inter-process data migration represents only a small fraction of the overall cost.