Numerical computation of a three-dimensional vortex sheet in a swirl flow

We consider an incompressible and inviscid fluid flow, called “swirl flow” that rotates around a certain axis in three-dimensional space. We investigate numerically the dynamics of a three-dimensional vortex sheet which is defined as a surface across which the velocity field of the swirl flow changes discontinuously. The vortex method and a fast summation method are implemented on a parallel computer. These numerical methods make it possible to compute the evolution of the vortex sheet for a long time and to describe the complex dynamics of the sheet.     

A new implicit surface tension implementation for interfacial flows

A new implementation of surface tension effects in interfacial flow codes is proposed which is both fully implicit in space, that is the interface never has to be reconstructed, and also semi‐implicit in time, with semi‐implicit referring to the time integration of the surface tension forces. The main idea is to combine two previously separate techniques to yield a new expression for the capillary forces. The first is the continuum surface force (CSF) method, which is used to regularize the discontinuous surface tension force term. The regularization can be elegantly implemented with the use of distance functions, which makes the level set method a suitable choice for the interface‐tracking algorithm. The second is to use a finite element discretization together with the Laplace–Beltrami operator, which enables simple reformulation of the surface tension term into its semi‐implicit equivalent. The performance of the new method is benchmarked against standard explicit methods, where it is shown that the new method is significantly more robust for the chosen test problems when the time steps exceed the numerical capillary time step restriction. Some improvements are also found in the average number of nonlinear iterations and linear multigrid steps taken while solving the momentum equations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stability and capillary dynamics of circular vortex sheets

We investigate the motion of circular vortex sheets with surface tension. A linear stability analysis shows that high modes of the circular vortex sheet are stabilized by surface tension, and the sheet is stable if surface tension is larger than a critical value. The modes of perturbations, n = 1 and 2, are always stable, regardless of surface tension, and the mode n = 3 is also stable for large surface tension. The numerical results show that a stable vortex sheet rotates and oscillates weakly. The oscillations of each mode of the interface mainly consist of two travelling waves of different frequencies in time. The amplitude and the period of the oscillation depend on the mode of the perturbation and surface tension. We also perform long-time computations for the unstable evolution of circular sheets. For a high Weber number, ripples are produced on the sheets, as well as pinching and self-intersection. It is found that the appearance of ripples is associated with the growth of noise. For an intermediate Weber number, the sheet evolves to an exotic structure with small spikes on the fingers, while for a low Weber number, it is nonlinearly stable.     

Thin‐tube vortex simulations for sinusoidal instability in a counter‐rotating vortex pair

A thin‐tube vortex method is developed to investigate the intrinsic instability within a counter‐rotating vortex pair system and the effects from the core size and the wavenumbers (or wavelengths). The numerical accuracy and the advantages of the scheme are theoretically estimated. A nearest‐neighbour‐image method is employed in this three‐dimensional vortex simulation. Agreement with Crow's instability analysis has been achieved numerically for the long‐wave cases. A short‐wave instability for the zeroth radial mode of bending instability has also been found using the thin‐tube vortex simulations. Then, the combinations of long‐ and short‐wave instability are investigated to elucidate the non‐linear effects due to the interactions of two different modes. It is shown that instability is enhanced if both long‐ and short‐wave instabilities occur simultaneously. Although the method used in the paper is not capable of including effects such as axial flow, vortex core deformation and other complicated viscous effects, it effectively predicts and clarifies the first‐order factor that dominates the sinusoidal instability behaviour in a vortex pair. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulating surface tension with smoothed particle hydrodynamics

A method for simulating two‐phase flows including surface tension is presented. The approach is based upon smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). The fully Lagrangian nature of SPH maintains sharp fluid–fluid interfaces without employing high‐order advection schemes or explicit interface reconstruction. Several possible implementations of surface tension force are suggested and compared. The numerical stability of the method is investigated and optimal choices for numerical parameters are identified. Comparisons with a grid‐based volume of fluid method for two‐dimensional flows are excellent. The methods presented here apply to problems involving interfaces of arbitrary shape undergoing fragmentation and coalescence within a two‐phase system and readily extend to three‐dimensional problems. Boundary conditions at a solid surface, high viscosity and density ratios, and the simulation of free‐surface flows are not addressed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High‐order semi‐implicit time‐integrators for a triangular discontinuous Galerkin oceanic shallow water model

We extend the explicit in time high‐order triangular discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method to semi‐implicit (SI) and then apply the algorithm to the two‐dimensional oceanic shallow water equations; we implement high‐order SI time‐integrators using the backward difference formulas from orders one to six. The reason for changing the time‐integration method from explicit to SI is that explicit methods require a very small time step in order to maintain stability, especially for high‐order DG methods. Changing the time‐integration method to SI allows one to circumvent the stability criterion due to the gravity waves, which for most shallow water applications are the fastest waves in the system (the exception being supercritical flow where the Froude number is greater than one). The challenge of constructing a SI method for a DG model is that the DG machinery requires not only the standard finite element‐type area integrals, but also the finite volume‐type boundary integrals as well. These boundary integrals pose the biggest challenge in a SI discretization because they require the construction of a Riemann solver that is the true linear representation of the nonlinear Riemann problem; if this condition is not satisfied then the resulting numerical method will not be consistent with the continuous equations. In this paper we couple the SI time‐integrators with the DG method while maintaining most of the usual attributes associated with DG methods such as: high‐order accuracy (in both space and time), parallel efficiency, excellent stability, and conservation. The only property lost is that of a compact communication stencil typical of time‐explicit DG methods; implicit methods will always require a much larger communication stencil. We apply the new high‐order SI DG method to the shallow water equations and show results for many standard test cases of oceanic interest such as: standing, Kelvin and Rossby soliton waves, and the Stommel problem. The results show that the new high‐order SI DG model, that has already been shown to yield exponentially convergent solutions in space for smooth problems, results in a more efficient model than its explicit counterpart. Furthermore, for those problems where the spatial resolution is sufficiently high compared with the length scales of the flow, the capacity to use high‐order (HO) time‐integrators is a necessary complement to the employment of HO space discretizations, since the total numerical error would be otherwise dominated by the time discretization error. In fact, in the limit of increasing spatial resolution, it makes little sense to use HO spatial discretizations coupled with low‐order time discretizations. Published in 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An accurate pressure–velocity decoupling technique for semi‐implicit rotational projection methods

In this paper, an accurate semi‐implicit rotational projection method is introduced to solve the Navier–Stokes equations for incompressible flow simulations. The accuracy of the fractional step procedure is investigated for the standard finite‐difference method, and the discrete forms are presented with arbitrary orders or accuracy. In contrast to the previous semi‐implicit projection methods, herein, an alternative way is proposed to decouple pressure from the momentum equation by employing the principle form of the pressure Poisson equation. This equation is based on the divergence of the convective terms and incorporates the actual pressure in the simulations. As a result, the accuracy of the method is not affected by the common choice of the pseudo‐pressure in the previous methods. Also, the velocity correction step is redefined, and boundary conditions are introduced accordingly. Several numerical tests are conducted to assess the robustness of the method for second and fourth orders of accuracy. The results are compared with the solutions obtained from a typical high‐resolution fully explicit method and available benchmark reports. Herein, the numerical tests are consisting of simulations for the Taylor–Green vortex, lid‐driven square cavity, and vortex–wall interaction. It is shown that the present method can preserve the order of accuracy for both velocity and pressure fields in second‐order and high‐order simulations. Furthermore, a very good agreement is observed between the results of the present method and benchmark simulations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nonlinear analysis of the deformation and breakup of viscous microjets using the method of lines

We present a numerical model for predicting the instability and breakup of viscous microjets of Newtonian fluid. We adopt a one‐dimensional slender‐jet approximation and obtain the equations of motion in the form of a pair of coupled nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs). We solve these equations using the method of lines, wherein the PDEs are transformed to a system of ordinary differential equations for the nodal values of the jet variables on a uniform staggered grid. We use the model to predict the instability and satellite formation in infinite microthreads of fluid and continuous microjets that emanate from an orifice. For the microthread analysis, we take into account arbitrary initial perturbations of the free‐surface and jet velocity, as well as Marangoni instability that is due to an arbitrary variation in the surface tension. For the continuous nozzle‐driven jet analysis, we take into account arbitrary time‐dependent perturbations of the free‐surface, velocity and/or surface tension as boundary conditions at the nozzle orifice. We validate the model using established computational data, as well as axisymmetric, volume of fluid (VOF) computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. The key advantages of the model are its ease of implementation and speed of computation, which is several orders of magnitude faster than the VOF CFD simulations. The model enables rapid parametric analysis of jet breakup and satellite formation as a function of jet dimensions, modulation parameters, and fluid rheology. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Lagrangian vortex method for unbounded flows

A technique is presented for velocity calculations on the highly distorted node distributions typical of those found in Lagrangian vortex methods. The method solves the partial differential equation for streamfunction directly on the nodes, via a sparse, symmetric system of equations that can be solved using standard iterative solvers. When implemented in a triangulated vortex method, the technique gives computation times which scale as N^1.23, where N is the number of nodes. The computation scheme is derived for two‐dimensional problems and applied to the prediction of the evolution of perturbed multipolar vortices. Due to the numerical performance of the method, it has been possible to examine such evolution at higher and lower Reynolds numbers than have been considered in published numerical studies. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Calculation of the flow of an ideal fluid past a wing of finite thickness

The problem of irrotational flow past a wing of finite thickness and finite span can be reduced by Green's formula to the solution of a system of Fredholm equations of the second kind on the surface of the wing [1]. The wake vortex sheet is represented by a free vortex surface. Besides panel methods (see, for example, [2]) there are also methods of approximate solution of this problem based on a preliminary discretization of the solution along the span of the wing in which the two-dimensional integral equations are reduced to a system of one-dimensional integral equations [1], for which numerical methods of solution have already been developed [3–6]. At the same time, a discretization is also realized for the wake vortex sheet along the span of the wing. In the present paper, this idea of numerical solution of the problem of irrotational flow past a wing of finite span is realized on the basis of an approximation of the unknown functions which is piecewise linear along the span. The wake vortex sheet is represented by vortex filaments [7] in the nonlinear problem. In the linear problem, the sheet is represented both by vortex filaments and by a vortex surface. Examples are given of an aerodynamic calculation for sweptback wings of finite thickness with a constriction, and the results of the calculation are also compared with experimental results.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 6, pp. 124–131, October–December, 1981.     

Computer‐algebra multiple‐timescale method for spatially periodic thin‐film viscous‐flow problems

A flexible, fully automated, computer‐algebra algorithm is developed for solving a class of non‐linear partial‐differential evolution equations arising frequently in the modeling of two‐dimensional transient free‐surface viscous thin‐film flows. The method, which is formulated for solving spatially periodic problems, is based upon an explicit multiple‐timescale asymptotic approximation of the thin‐film thickness. It admits the resolution of diverse physical phenomena by employing a finite geometric progression of increasingly slow timescales. The method is implemented on a challenging test problem comprising the evolution of an annular film of viscous liquid, with a free surface, adhering to the exterior of a horizontal rotating circular cylinder; as a model for numerous industrially motivated coating flows, this benchmark problem has been analyzed in diverse numerical and theoretical studies, against whose results those of the present method are compared. The explicit algebraic form of the solution admits a study of large‐time evolutionary dynamics that lies beyond the reach of considerably more expensive conventional numerical solvers, thereby shedding new light on the hitherto‐undiscovered explicit dependence of large‐time evolutionary fluid dynamics in terms of independent parameters describing gravitational and capillary effects. The results obtained from the new computer‐algebra procedure are demonstrated to be in good agreement with those obtained from a bespoke efficient numerical integration method that is spectrally accurate in space and 8th‐order (Runge–Kutta) in time. Newly discovered mechanisms describing the decay of free‐surface wave modes, from arbitrary initial conditions to the steady state, are presented. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A semi‐implicit finite volume implementation of the CSF method for treating surface tension in interfacial flows

We present an implementation of Hysing's (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 2006; 51 :659–672) semi‐implicit method for treating surface tension, for finite volume models of interfacial flows. Using this method, the surface tension timestep restriction, which is often very stringent, can be exceeded by at least a factor of 5 without destabilizing the solution. The surface tension force in this method consists of an explicit part, which is the regular continuum surface force, and an implicit part which represents the diffusion of velocities induced by surface tension on fluids interfaces. The surface tension force is applied to the velocity field by solving a system of equations iteratively. Since the equations are solved only near interfaces, the computational time spent on the iterative procedure is insignificant. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A viscous vortex particle method for deforming bodies with application to biolocomotion

Bio‐inspired mechanics of locomotion generally consist of the interaction of flexible structures with the surrounding fluid to generate propulsive forces. In this work, we extend, for the first time, the viscous vortex particle method (VVPM) to continuously deforming two‐dimensional bodies. The VVPM is a high‐fidelity Navier–Stokes computational method that captures the fluid motion through evolution of vorticity‐bearing computational particles. The kinematics of the deforming body surface are accounted for via a surface integral in the Biot–Savart velocity. The spurious slip velocity in each time step is removed by computing an equivalent vortex sheet and allowing it to flux to adjacent particles; hence, no‐slip boundary conditions are enforced. Particles of both uniform and variable size are utilized, and their relative merits are considered. The placement of this method in the larger class of immersed boundary methods is explored. Validation of the method is carried out on the problem of a periodically deforming circular cylinder immersed in a stagnant fluid, for which an analytical solution exists when the deformations are small. We show that the computed vorticity and velocity of this motion are both in excellent agreement with the analytical solution. Finally, we explore the fluid dynamics of a simple fish‐like shape undergoing undulatory motion when immersed in a uniform free stream, to demonstrate the application of the method to investigations of biomorphic locomotion. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical methods for conjunctive two‐dimensional surface and three‐dimensional sub‐surface flows

Sophisticated catchment runoff problems necessitate conjunctive modeling of overland flow and sub‐surface flow. In this paper, finite difference numerical methods are studied for simulation of catchment runoff of two‐dimensional surface flow interacting with three‐dimensional unsaturated and saturated sub‐surface flows. The equations representing the flows are mathematically classified as a type of heat diffusion equation. Therefore, two‐ and three‐dimensional numerical methods for heat diffusion equations were investigated for applications to the surface and sub‐surface flow sub‐models in terms of accuracy, stability, and calculation time. The methods are the purely explicit method, Saul'yev's methods, the alternating direction explicit (ADE) methods, and the alternating direction implicit (ADI) methods. The methods are first examined on surface and sub‐surface flows separately; subsequently, 12 selected combinations of methods were investigated for modeling the conjunctive flows. Saul'yev's downstream (S‐d) method was found to be the preferred method for two‐dimensional surface flow modeling, whereas the ADE method of Barakat and Clark is a less accurate, stable alternative. For the three‐dimensional sub‐surface flow model, the ADE method of Larkin (ADE‐L) and Brian's ADI method are unconditionally stable and more accurate than the other methods. The calculations of the conjunctive models utilizing the S‐d surface flow sub‐model give excellent results and confirm the expectation that the errors of the surface and sub‐surface sub‐models interact. The surface sub‐model dominates the accuracy and stability of the conjunctive model, whereas the sub‐surface sub‐model dominates the calculation time, suggesting the desirability of using a smaller time increment for the surface sub‐model. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Q2Q1 finite element/level‐set method for simulating two‐phase flows with surface tension

A Q2Q1 (quadratic velocity/linear pressure) finite element/level‐set method was proposed for simulating incompressible two‐phase flows with surface tension. The Navier–Stokes equations were solved using the Q2Q1 integrated FEM, and the level‐set variable was linearly interpolated using a ‘pseudo’ Q2Q1 finite element when calculating the density and viscosity of a fluid to avoid an unbounded density/viscosity. The advection of the level‐set function was calculated through the Taylor–Galerkin method, and the direct approach method is employed for reinitialization. The proposed method was tested by solving several benchmark problems including rising bubbles exhibiting a large density difference and the surface tension effect. The numerical results of the rising bubbles were compared with the existing results to validate the benchmark quantities such as the centroid, circularity, and rising velocity. Furthermore, we focused our attention mainly on mass conservation and time‐step. We observed that the present method represented a convergence rate between 1.0 and 1.5 orders in terms of mass conservation and provided more stable solutions even when using a larger time‐step than the critical time‐step that was imposed because of the explicit treatment of surface tension. 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.     

Fourth‐order finite difference scheme for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in a disk

We develop an efficient fourth‐order finite difference method for solving the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in the vorticity‐stream function formulation on a disk. We use the fourth‐order Runge–Kutta method for the time integration and treat both the convection and diffusion terms explicitly. Using a uniform grid with shifting a half mesh away from the origin, we avoid placing the grid point directly at the origin; thus, no pole approximation is needed. Besides, on such grid, a fourth‐order fast direct method is used to solve the Poisson equation of the stream function. By Fourier filtering the vorticity in the azimuthal direction at each time stage, we are able to increase the time step to a reasonable size. The numerical results of the accuracy test and the simulation of a vortex dipole colliding with circular wall are presented. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical simulation of bubble and droplet deformation by a level set approach with surface tension in three dimensions

In this paper we present a three‐dimensional Navier–Stokes solver for incompressible two‐phase flow problems with surface tension and apply the proposed scheme to the simulation of bubble and droplet deformation. One of the main concerns of this study is the impact of surface tension and its discretization on the overall convergence behavior and conservation properties. Our approach employs a standard finite difference/finite volume discretization on uniform Cartesian staggered grids and uses Chorin's projection approach. The free surface between the two fluid phases is tracked with a level set (LS) technique. Here, the interface conditions are implicitly incorporated into the momentum equations by the continuum surface force method. Surface tension is evaluated using a smoothed delta function and a third‐order interpolation. The problem of mass conservation for the two phases is treated by a reinitialization of the LS function employing a regularized signum function and a global fixed point iteration. All convective terms are discretized by a WENO scheme of fifth order. Altogether, our approach exhibits a second‐order convergence away from the free surface. The discretization of surface tension requires a smoothing scheme near the free surface, which leads to a first‐order convergence in the smoothing region. We discuss the details of the proposed numerical scheme and present the results of several numerical experiments concerning mass conservation, convergence of curvature, and the application of our solver to the simulation of two rising bubble problems, one with small and one with large jumps in material parameters, and the simulation of a droplet deformation due to a shear flow in three space dimensions. Furthermore, we compare our three‐dimensional results with those of quasi‐two‐dimensional and two‐dimensional simulations. This comparison clearly shows the need for full three‐dimensional simulations of droplet and bubble deformation to capture the correct physical behavior. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Solitary wave solutions and their interactions for fully nonlinear water waves with surface tension in the generalized Serre equations

Some effects of surface tension on fully nonlinear, long, surface water waves are studied by numerical means. The differences between various solitary waves and their interactions in subcritical and supercritical surface tension regimes are presented. Analytical expressions for new peaked traveling wave solutions are presented in the dispersionless case of critical surface tension. Numerical experiments are performed using a high-accurate finite element method based on smooth cubic splines and the four-stage, classical, explicit Runge–Kutta method of order 4.     

Space‐time NURBS‐enhanced finite elements for free‐surface flows in 2D

The accuracy of numerical simulations of free‐surface flows depends strongly on the computation of geometric quantities like normal vectors and curvatures. This geometrical information is additional to the actual degrees of freedom and usually requires a much finer discretization of the computational domain than the flow solution itself. Therefore, the utilization of a numerical method, which uses standard functions to discretize the unknown function in combination with an enhanced geometry representation is a natural step to improve the simulation efficiency. An example of such method is the NURBS‐enhanced finite element method (NEFEM), recently proposed by Sevilla et al. The current paper discusses the extension of the spatial NEFEM to space‐time methods and investigates the application of space‐time NURBS‐enhanced elements to free‐surface flows. Derived is also a kinematic rule for the NURBS motion in time, which is able to preserve mass conservation over time. Numerical examples show the ability of the space‐time NEFEM to account for both pressure discontinuities and surface tension effects and compute smooth free‐surface forms. For these examples, the advantages of the NEFEM compared with the classical FEM are shown. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.