The Lagrange–Galerkin method for the two‐dimensional shallow water equations on adaptive grids

The weak Lagrange–Galerkin finite element method for the two‐dimensional shallow water equations on adaptive unstructured grids is presented. The equations are written in conservation form and the domains are discretized using triangular elements. Lagrangian methods integrate the governing equations along the characteristic curves, thus being well suited for resolving the non‐linearities introduced by the advection operator of the fluid dynamics equations. An additional fortuitous consequence of using Lagrangian methods is that the resulting spatial operator is self‐adjoint, thereby justifying the use of a Galerkin formulation; this formulation has been proven to be optimal for such differential operators. The weak Lagrange–Galerkin method automatically takes into account the dilation of the control volume, thereby resulting in a conservative scheme. The use of linear triangular elements permits the construction of accurate (by virtue of the second‐order spatial and temporal accuracies of the scheme) and efficient (by virtue of the less stringent Courant–Friedrich–Lewy (CFL) condition of Lagrangian methods) schemes on adaptive unstructured triangular grids. Lagrangian methods are natural candidates for use with adaptive unstructured grids because the resolution of the grid can be increased without having to decrease the time step in order to satisfy stability. An advancing front adaptive unstructured triangular mesh generator is presented. The highlight of this algorithm is that the weak Lagrange–Galerkin method is used to project the conservation variables from the old mesh onto the newly adapted mesh. In addition, two new schemes for computing the characteristic curves are presented: a composite mid‐point rule and a general family of Runge–Kutta schemes. Results for the two‐dimensional advection equation with and without time‐dependent velocity fields are illustrated to confirm the accuracy of the particle trajectories. Results for the two‐dimensional shallow water equations on a non‐linear soliton wave are presented to illustrate the power and flexibility of this strategy. Copyright © 2000 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.     

High‐order 𝒞1 finite‐element interpolating schemes—Part I: Semi‐Lagrangian linear advection

This paper is devoted to the development of accurate high‐order interpolating schemes for semi‐Lagrangian advection. The characteristic‐Galerkin formulation is obtained by using a semi‐Lagrangian temporal discretization of the total derivative. The semi‐Lagrangian method requires high‐order interpolators for accuracy. A class of ??¹ finite‐element interpolating schemes is developed and two semi‐Lagrangian methods are considered by tracking the feet of the characteristic lines either from the interpolation or from the integration nodes. Numerical stability and analytical results quantifying the amount of artificial viscosity induced by the two methods are presented in the case of the one‐dimensional linear advection equation, based on the modified equation approach. Results of test problems to simulate the linear advection of a cosine hill illustrate the performance of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lagrangian formulation for finite element analysis of quasi‐incompressible fluids with reduced mass losses

We present a Lagrangian formulation for finite element analysis of quasi‐incompressible fluids that has excellent mass preservation features. The success of the formulation lays on a new residual‐based stabilized expression of the mass balance equation obtained using the finite calculus method. The governing equations are discretized with the FEM using simplicial elements with equal linear interpolation for the velocities and the pressure. The merits of the formulation in terms of reduced mass loss and overall accuracy are verified in the solution of 2D and 3D quasi‐incompressible free‐surface flow problems using the particle FEM ( www.cimne.com/pfem ). Examples include the sloshing of water in a tank, the collapse of one and two water columns in rectangular and prismatic tanks, and the falling of a water sphere into a cylindrical tank containing water. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interface reconstruction with least‐square fit and split Eulerian–Lagrangian advection

Two new volume‐of‐fluid (VOF) reconstruction algorithms, which are based on a least‐square fit technique, are presented. Their performance is tested for several standard shapes and is compared to a few other VOF/PLIC reconstruction techniques, showing in general a better convergence rate. The geometric nature of Lagrangian and Eulerian split advection algorithms is investigated in detail and a new mixed split Eulerian implicit–Lagrangian explicit (EI–LE) scheme is presented. This method conserves the mass to machine error, performs better than split Eulerian and Lagrangian algorithms, and it is only slightly worse than unsplit schemes. However, the combination of the interface reconstruction with the least‐square fit and its advection with the EI–LE scheme appears superior to other existing approaches. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Properties of the Eulerian–Lagrangian method using linear interpolators in a three-dimensional shallow water model using z-level coordinates

We investigate the impact of the inexact interpolation on the Eulerian–Lagrangian solution of the advection equation by combining numerical experiments and formal analysis. The simulations, respectively, using the Eulerian–Lagrangian method (ELM) and the upwind scheme are compared. The artificial resistance of the ELM is observed which is characterised by the higher free-surface elevation and the distorted turbulent properties at a smaller time step. Through analysis, we find that the abnormalities are caused by the fact the conventional linear interpolation does not adapt well to the nonlinear velocity distribution, which produces an advection computation error that increases with a decreasing time step. The phenomena are explained and an improved method ELM is proposed based on the illustrations and analysis. The new method combines the face-controlled interpolation and the adjustable sub time steps to skip the large computation error domain in the backtracking, and it is validated by the original test case.     

Solution of the Navier–Stokes equations in velocity–vorticity form using a Eulerian–Lagrangian boundary element method

This paper describes the Eulerian–Lagrangian boundary element model for the solution of incompressible viscous flow problems using velocity–vorticity variables. A Eulerian–Lagrangian boundary element method (ELBEM) is proposed by the combination of the Eulerian–Lagrangian method and the boundary element method (BEM). ELBEM overcomes the limitation of the traditional BEM, which is incapable of dealing with the arbitrary velocity field in advection‐dominated flow problems. The present ELBEM model involves the solution of the vorticity transport equation for vorticity whose solenoidal vorticity components are obtained iteratively by solving velocity Poisson equations involving the velocity and vorticity components. The velocity Poisson equations are solved using a boundary integral scheme and the vorticity transport equation is solved using the ELBEM. Here the results of two‐dimensional Navier–Stokes problems with low–medium Reynolds numbers in a typical cavity flow are presented and compared with a series solution and other numerical models. The ELBEM model has been found to be feasible and satisfactory. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

3D two phase flows numerical simulations by SL‐VOF method

This paper describes the development of a semi‐Lagrangian computational method for simulating complex 3D two phase flows. The Navier–Stokes equations are solved separately in both fluids using a robust pseudo‐compressibility method able to deal with high density ratio. The interface tracking is achieved by the segment Lagrangian volume of fluid (SL‐VOF) method. The 2D SL‐VOF method using the concepts of VOF, piecewise linear interface calculation (PLIC) and Lagrangian advection of the interface is herein extended to 3D flows. Three different test cases of SL‐VOF 3D are presented for validation and comparison either with 2D flows or with other numerical methods. A good agreement is observed in each case. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parallel algorithms for semi-lagrangian advection

Numerical time step limitations associated with the explicit treatment of advection-dominated problems in computational fluid dynamics are often relaxed by employing Eulerian–Lagrangian methods. These are also known as semi-Lagrangian methods in the atmospheric sciences. Such methods involve backward time integration of a characteristic equation to find the departure point of a fluid particle arriving at a Eulerian grid point. The value of the advected field at the departure point is obtained by interpolation. Both the trajectory integration and repeated interpolation influence accuracy. We compare the accuracy and performance of interpolation schemes based on piecewise cubic polynomials and cubic B-splines in the context of a distributed memory, parallel computing environment. The computational cost and interprocessor communication requirements for both methods are reported. Spline interpolation has better conservation properties but requires the solution of a global linear system, initially appearing to hinder a distributed memory implementation. The proposed parallel algorithm for multidimensional spline interpolation has almost the same communication overhead as local piecewise polynomial interpolation. We also compare various techniques for tracking trajectories given different values for the Courant number. Large Courant numbers require a high-order ODE solver involving multiple interpolations of the velocity field. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improved ALE mesh velocities for complex flows

A key choice in the development of arbitrary Lagrangian‐Eulerian solution algorithms is how to move the computational mesh. The most common approaches are smoothing and relaxation techniques, or to compute a mesh velocity field that produces smooth mesh displacements. We present a method in which the mesh velocity is specified by the irrotational component of the fluid velocity as computed from a Helmholtz decomposition, and excess compression of mesh cells is treated through a noniterative, local spring‐force model. This approach allows distinct and separate control over rotational and translational modes. The utility of the new mesh motion algorithm is demonstrated on a number of 3D test problems, including problems that involve both shocks and significant amounts of vorticity.     

The Lagrangian approach of advective term treatment and its application to the solution of Navier—Stokes equations

A one-dimensional transport test applied to some conventional advective Eulerian schemes shows that linear stability analyses do not guarantee the actual performances of these schemes. When adopting the Lagrangian approach, the main problem raised in the numerical treatment of advective terms is a problem of interpolation or restitution of the transported function shape from discrete data. Several interpolation methods are tested. Some of them give excellent results and these methods are then extended to multi-dimensional cases. The Lagrangian formulation of the advection term permits an easy solution to the Navier-Stokes equations in primitive variables V, p, by a finite difference scheme, explicit in advection and implicit in diffusion. As an illustration steady state laminar flow behind a sudden enlargement is analysed using an upwind differencing scheme and a Lagrangian scheme. The importance of the choice of the advective scheme in computer programs for industrial application is clearly apparent in this example.     

3D scanning particle tracking velocimetry

In this article, we present an experimental setup and data processing schemes for 3D scanning particle tracking velocimetry (SPTV), which expands on the classical 3D particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) through changes in the illumination, image acquisition and analysis. 3D PTV is a flexible flow measurement technique based on the processing of stereoscopic images of flow tracer particles. The technique allows obtaining Lagrangian flow information directly from measured 3D trajectories of individual particles. While for a classical PTV the entire region of interest is simultaneously illuminated and recorded, in SPTV the flow field is recorded by sequential tomographic high-speed imaging of the region of interest. The advantage of the presented method is a considerable increase in maximum feasible seeding density. Results are shown for an experiment in homogenous turbulence and compared with PTV. SPTV yielded an average 3,500 tracked particles per time step, which implies a significant enhancement of the spatial resolution for Lagrangian flow measurements.     

A closed model of fluctuating particle motion in a turbulent flow

Random particle motion in a turbulent and molecular velocity fluctuation field is considered. Using a spectral representation of the carrier-phase Eulerian velocity fluctuation correlations, a closed system of integral equations for calculating the carrier-phase velocity correlation along the particle trajectory and the particle Lagrangian velocity fluctuation correlation is obtained. Based on this system, the fluctuations of the particle parameters are analyzed. In the limiting case of a passive admixture, an estimate is found for the ratio of the integral Lagrangian and Eulerian time scales and the Kolmogorov constant for the Lagrangian structure function of the carrier-phase velocity fluctuations.     

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.     

Three‐dimensional vortex simulation of unsteady flow in hydraulic turbines

On the basis of the Helmholtz decomposition, a grid‐free numerical scheme is provided for the solution of unsteady flow in hydraulic turbines. The Lagrangian vortex method is utilized to evaluate the convection and stretch of the vorticity, and the BEM is used to solve the Neumann problem to define the potential flow. The no‐slip boundary condition is satisfied by generating vortex sticks at the solid surface. A semi‐analytical regularization technique is applied to evaluate the singular boundary surface integrals of the potential velocity and its gradients accurately. The fast multipole method was extended to evaluate the velocity and velocity gradients induced by the discretized vortex blobs in the Lagrangian vortex method. The successful simulation for the unsteady flow through a hydraulic turbine's runner has manifested the effectiveness of the proposed method. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A high‐order fully explicit flux‐form semi‐Lagrangian shallow‐water model

A new approach is proposed for constructing a fully explicit third‐order mass‐conservative semi‐Lagrangian scheme for simulating the shallow‐water equations on an equiangular cubed‐sphere grid. State variables are staggered with velocity components stored pointwise at nodal points and mass variables stored as element averages. In order to advance the state variables in time, we first apply an explicit multi‐step time‐stepping scheme to update the velocity components and then use a semi‐Lagrangian advection scheme to update the height field and tracer variables. This procedure is chosen to ensure consistency between dry air mass and tracers, which is particularly important in many atmospheric chemistry applications. The resulting scheme is shown to be competitive with many existing numerical methods on a suite of standard test cases and demonstrates slightly improved performance over other high‐order finite‐volume models. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A New Lagrangian Asymptotic Solution for Gravity–Capillary Waves in Water of Finite Depth

A third-order Lagrangian asymptotic solution is derived for gravity–capillary waves in water of finite depth. The explicit parametric solution gives the trajectory of a water particle and the wave kinematics for Lagrangian points above the mean water level, and in a water column. The water particle orbits and mass transport velocity as functions of the surface tension are obtained. Some remarkable trajectories may contain one or multiple sub-loops for steep waves and large surface tension. Overall, an increase in surface tension tends to increase the motions of surface particles including the relative horizontal distance travelled by a particle as well as the time-averaged drift velocity     

A high‐order backward forward sweep interpolating algorithm for semi‐Lagrangian method

Conventional semi‐Lagrangian methods often suffer from poor accuracy and imbalance problems of advected properties because of low‐order interpolation schemes used and/or inability to reduce both dissipation and dispersion errors even with high‐order schemes. In the current work, we propose a fourth‐order semi‐Lagrangian method to solve the advection terms at a computing cost of third‐order interpolation scheme by applying backward and forward interpolations in an alternating sweep manner. The method was demonstrated for solving 1‐D and 2‐D advection problems, and 2‐D and 3‐D lid‐driven cavity flows with a multi‐level V‐cycle multigrid solver. It shows that the proposed method can reduce both dissipation and dispersion errors in all regions, especially near sharp gradients, at a same accuracy as but less computing cost than the typical fourth‐order interpolation because of fewer grids used. The proposed method is also shown able to achieve more accurate results on coarser grids than conventional linear and other high‐order interpolation schemes in the literature. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A lagrangian lattice boltzmann method for euler equations

A Lagrangian lattice Boltzmann method for solving Euler equations is proposed. The key step in formulating this method is the introduction of the displacement distribution function. The equilibrium distribution function consists of macroscopic Lagrangian variables at time stepsn andn+1. It is different from the standard lattice Boltzmann method. In this method the element, instead of each particle, is required to satisfy the basic law. The element is considered as one large particle, which results in simpler version than the corresponding Eulerian one, because the advection term disappears here. Our numerical examples successfully reproduce the classical results.     

On the efficiency of semi‐implicit and semi‐Lagrangian spectral methods for the calculation of incompressible flows

Classical semi‐implicit backward Euler/Adams–Bashforth time discretizations of the Navier–Stokes equations induce, for high‐Reynolds number flows, severe restrictions on the time step. Such restrictions can be relaxed by using semi‐Lagrangian schemes essentially based on splitting the full problem into an explicit transport step and an implicit diffusion step. In comparison with the standard characteristics method, the semi‐Lagrangian method has the advantage of being much less CPU time consuming where spectral methods are concerned. This paper is devoted to the comparison of the ‘semi‐implicit’ and ‘semi‐Lagrangian’ approaches, in terms of stability, accuracy and computational efficiency. Numerical results on the advection equation, Burger's equation and finally two‐ and three‐dimensional Navier–Stokes equations, using spectral elements or a collocation method, are provided. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.