A vertex‐centered linearity‐preserving discretization of diffusion problems on polygonal meshes

This paper introduces a vertex‐centered linearity‐preserving finite volume scheme for the heterogeneous anisotropic diffusion equations on general polygonal meshes. The unknowns of this scheme are purely the values at the mesh vertices, and no auxiliary unknowns are utilized. The scheme is locally conservative with respect to the dual mesh, captures exactly the linear solutions, leads to a symmetric positive definite matrix, and yields a nine‐point stencil on structured quadrilateral meshes. The coercivity of the scheme is rigorously analyzed on arbitrary mesh size under some weak geometry assumptions. Also, the relation with the finite volume element method is discussed. Finally, some numerical tests show the optimal convergence rates for the discrete solution and flux on various mesh types and for various diffusion tensors. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A linearity‐preserving cell‐centered scheme for the heterogeneous and anisotropic diffusion equations on general meshes

In this paper a finite volume scheme for the heterogeneous and anisotropic diffusion equations is proposed on general, possibly nonconforming meshes. This scheme has both cell‐centered unknowns and vertex unknowns. The vertex unknowns are treated as intermediate ones and are expressed as a linear weighted combination of the surrounding cell‐centered unknowns, which reduces the scheme to a completely cell‐centered one. We propose two types of new explicit weights which allow arbitrary diffusion tensors, and are neither discontinuity dependent nor mesh topology dependent. Both the derivation of the scheme and that of new weights satisfy the linearity‐preserving criterion which requires that a discretization scheme should be exact on linear solutions. The resulting new scheme is called as the linearity‐preserving cell‐centered scheme and the numerical results show that it maintain optimal convergence rates for the solution and flux on general polygonal distorted meshes in case that the diffusion tensor is taken to be anisotropic, at times heterogeneous, and/or discontinuous. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A gas‐kinetic scheme for the simulation of turbulent flows on unstructured meshes

This paper presents a numerical method for simulating turbulent flows via coupling the Boltzmann BGK equation with Spalart–Allmaras one equation turbulence model. Both the Boltzmann BGK equation and the turbulence model equation are carried out using the finite volume method on unstructured meshes, which is different from previous works on structured grid. The application of the gas‐kinetic scheme is extended to the simulation of turbulent flows with arbitrary geometries. The adaptive mesh refinement technique is also adopted to reduce the computational cost and improve the efficiency of meshes. To organize the unstructured mesh data structure efficiently, a non‐manifold hybrid mesh data structure is extended for polygonal cells. Numerical experiments are performed on incompressible flow over a smooth flat plate and compressible turbulent flows around a NACA 0012 airfoil using unstructured hybrid meshes. These numerical results are found to be in good agreement with experimental data and/or other numerical solutions, demonstrating the applicability of the proposed method to simulate both subsonic and transonic turbulent flows. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A parallel unstructured dynamic mesh adaptation algorithm for 3‐D unsteady flows

An unstructured dynamic mesh adaptation and load balancing algorithm has been developed for the efficient simulation of three‐dimensional unsteady inviscid flows on parallel machines. The numerical scheme was based on a cell‐centred finite‐volume method and the Roe's flux‐difference splitting. Second‐order accuracy was achieved in time by using an implicit Jacobi/Gauss–Seidel iteration. The resolution of time‐dependent solutions was enhanced by adopting an h‐refinement/coarsening algorithm. Parallelization and load balancing were concurrently achieved on the adaptive dynamic meshes for computational speed‐up and efficient memory redistribution. A new tree data structure for boundary faces was developed for the continuous transfer of the communication data across the parallel subdomain boundary. The parallel efficiency was validated by applying the present method to an unsteady shock‐tube problem. The flows around oscillating NACA0012 wing and F‐5 wing were also calculated for the numerical verification of the present dynamic mesh adaptation and load balancing algorithm. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A cell‐based smoothed finite element method with semi‐implicit CBS procedures for incompressible laminar viscous flows

In this paper, the cell‐based smoothed finite element method (CS‐FEM) with the semi‐implicit characteristic‐based split (CBS) scheme (CBS/CS‐FEM) is proposed for computational fluid dynamics. The 3‐node triangular (T3) element and 4‐node quadrilateral (Q4) element are used for present CBS/CS‐FEM for two‐dimensional flows. The 8‐node hexahedral element (H8) is used for three‐dimensional flows. Two types of CS‐FEM are implemented in this paper. One is standard CS‐FEM with quadrilateral gradient smoothing cells for Q4 element and hexahedron cells for H8 element. Another is called as n‐sided CS‐FEM (nCS‐FEM) whose gradient smoothing cells are triangles for Q4 element and pyramids for H8 element. To verify the proposed methods, benchmarking problems are tested for two‐dimensional and three‐dimensional flows. The benchmarks show that CBS/CS‐FEM and CBS/nCS‐FEM are capable to solve incompressible laminar flow and can produce reliable results for both steady and unsteady flows. The proposed CBS/CS‐FEM method has merits on better robustness against distorted mesh with only slight more computation time and without losing accuracy, which is important for problems with heavy mesh distortion. The blood flow in carotid bifurcation is also simulated to show capabilities of proposed methods for realistic and complicated flow problems.     

A stable and accurate projection method on a locally refined staggered mesh

In this paper, a robust projection method on a locally refined mesh is proposed for two‐ and three‐dimensional viscous incompressible flows. The proposed method is robust not only when the interface between two meshes is located in a smooth flow region but also when the interface is located in a flow region with large gradients and/or strong unsteadiness. In numerical simulations, a locally refined mesh saves many grid points in regions of relatively small gradients compared with a uniform mesh. For efficiency and ease of implementation, we consider a two‐level blocked structure, for which both of the coarse and fine meshes are uniform Cartesian ones individually. Unfortunately, the introduction of the two‐level blocked mesh results in an important but difficult issue: coupling of the coarse and fine meshes. In this paper, by properly addressing the issue of the coupling, we propose a stable and accurate projection method on a locally refined staggered mesh for both two‐ and three‐dimensional viscous incompressible flows. The proposed projection method is based on two principles: the linear interpolation technique and the consistent discretization of both sides of the pressure Poisson equation. The proposed algorithm is straightforward owing to the linear interpolation technique, is stable and accurate, is easy to extend from two‐ to three‐dimensional flows, and is valid even when flows with large gradients cross the interface between the two meshes. The resulting pressure Poisson equation is non‐symmetric on a locally refined mesh. The numerical results for a series of exact solutions for 2D and 3D viscous incompressible flows verify the stability and accuracy of the proposed projection method. The method is also applied to some challenging problems, including turbulent flows around particles, flows induced by impulsively started/stopped particles, and flows induced by particles near solid walls, to test the stability and accuracy. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A computationally efficient 3D finite‐volume scheme for violent liquid–gas sloshing

We describe a semi‐implicit volume‐of‐fluid free‐surface‐modelling methodology for flow problems involving violent free‐surface motion. For efficient computation, a hybrid‐unstructured edge‐based vertex‐centred finite volume discretisation is employed, while the solution methodology is entirely matrix free. Pressures are solved using a matrix‐free preconditioned generalised minimum residual algorithm and explicit time‐stepping is employed for the momentum and interface‐tracking equations. The high resolution artificial compressive (HiRAC) volume‐of‐fluid method is used for accurate capturing of the free surface in violent flow regimes while allowing natural applicability to hybrid‐unstructured meshes. The code is parallelised for solution on distributed‐memory architectures and evaluated against 2D and 3D benchmark problems. Good parallel scaling is demonstrated, with almost linear speed‐up down to 6000 cells per core. Finally, the code is applied to an industrial‐type problem involving resonant excitation of a fuel tank, and a comparison with experimental results is made in this violent sloshing regime. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Three‐dimensional remeshed smoothed particle hydrodynamics for the simulation of isotropic turbulence

We present a remeshed particle‐mesh method for the simulation of three‐dimensional compressible turbulent flow. The method is related to the meshfree smoothed particle hydrodynamics method, but the present method introduces a mesh for efficient calculation of the pressure gradient, and laminar and turbulent diffusion. In addition, the mesh is used to remesh (reorganise uniformly) the particles to ensure a regular particle distribution and convergence of the method. The accuracy of the presented methodology is tested for a number of benchmark problems involving two‐ and three‐dimensional Taylor‐Green flow, thin double shear layer, and three‐dimensional isotropic turbulence. Two models were implemented, direct numerical simulations, and Smagorinsky model. Taking advantage of the Lagrangian advection, and the finite difference efficiency, the method is capable of providing quality simulations while maintaining its robustness and versatility.     

Anisotropic mesh adaptation: towards user‐independent,mesh‐independent and solver‐independent CFD. Part III. Unstructured meshes

The present paper is the third article in a three‐part series on anisotropic mesh adaptation and its application to two‐ and three‐dimensional, structured and unstructured meshes. This third paper concerns the application of the full adaptation methodology to 2‐D unstructured meshes, including all four mesh modification strategies presented in Part I, i.e. refinement/coarsening, edge swapping and node movement. The mesh adaptation procedure is validated through a careful monitoring of a single adaptation step and of the solution–adaptation loop. Independence from the initial mesh and from the flow solver is illustrated. The efficiency of the overall methodology is investigated on relevant laminar and turbulent flow benchmarks. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stabilized finite element formulation for incompressible flow on distorted meshes

Flow computations frequently require unfavourably meshes, as for example highly stretched elements in regions of boundary layers or distorted elements in deforming arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian meshes. Thus, the performance of a flow solver on such meshes is of great interest. The behaviour of finite elements with residual‐based stabilization for incompressible Newtonian flow on distorted meshes is considered here. We investigate the influence of the stabilization terms on the results obtained on distorted meshes by a number of numerical studies. The effect of different element length definitions within the elemental stabilization parameter is considered. Further, different variants of residual‐based stabilization are compared indicating that dropping the second derivatives from the stabilization operator, i.e. using a streamline upwind Petrov–Galerkin type of formulation yields better results in a variety of cases. A comparison of the performance of linear and quadratic elements reveals further that the inconsistency of linear elements equipped with residual‐based stabilization introduces significant errors on distorted meshes, while quadratic elements are almost unaffected by moderate mesh distortion. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A marker‐and‐cell approach to free surface 2‐D multiphase flows

This work describes a methodology to simulate free surface incompressible multiphase flows. This novel methodology allows the simulation of multiphase flows with an arbitrary number of phases, each of them having different densities and viscosities. Surface and interfacial tension effects are also included. The numerical technique is based on the GENSMAC front‐tracking method. The velocity field is computed using a finite‐difference discretization of a modification of the Navier–Stokes equations. These equations together with the continuity equation are solved for the two‐dimensional multiphase flows, with different densities and viscosities in the different phases. The governing equations are solved on a regular Eulerian grid, and a Lagrangian mesh is employed to track free surfaces and interfaces. The method is validated by comparing numerical with analytic results for a number of simple problems; it was also employed to simulate complex problems for which no analytic solutions are available. The method presented in this paper has been shown to be robust and computationally efficient. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High resolution Godunov‐type schemes with small stencils

Higher‐order Godunov‐type schemes have to cope with the following two problems: (i) the increase in the size of the stencil that make the scheme computationally expensive, and (ii) the monotony‐preserving treatments (limiters) that must be implemented to avoid oscillations, leading to strong damping of the solution, in particular linear waves (e.g. acoustic waves). When too compressive, limiting procedures may also trigger the instability of oscillatory numerical solutions (e.g. in advection–dispersion phenomena) via the artificial amplification of the shorter modes. The present paper proposes a new approach to carry out the reconstruction. In this approach, the values of the flow variable at the edges of the computational cells are obtained directly from the reconstruction within these cells. This method is applied to the MUSCL and DPM schemes for the solution of the linear advection equation. The modified DPM scheme can capture contact discontinuities within one computational cell, even after millions of time steps at Courant numbers ranging from 1 to values as low as 10^‐4. Linear waves are subject to negligible damping. Application of the method to the DPM for one‐dimensional advection–dispersion problems shows that the numerical instability of oscillatory solutions caused by the over compressive, original DPM limiter is eliminated. One‐ and two‐dimensional shallow water simulations show an improvement over classical methods, in particular for two‐dimensional problems with strongly distorted meshes. The quality of the computational solution in the two‐dimensional case remains acceptable even for mesh aspect ratios Δx/Δy as large as 10. The method can be extend to the discretization of higher‐order PDEs, allowing third‐order space derivatives to be discretized using only two cells in space. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An unfitted interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin method for incompressible Navier–Stokes two‐phase flow

A discontinuous Galerkin method for the solution of the immiscible and incompressible two‐phase flow problem based on the nonsymmetric interior penalty method is presented. Therefore, the incompressible Navier–Stokes equation is solved for a domain decomposed into two subdomains with different values of viscosity and density as well as a singular surface tension force. On the basis of a piecewise linear approximation of the interface, meshes for both phases are cut out of a structured mesh. The discontinuous finite elements are defined on the resulting Cartesian cut‐cell mesh and may therefore approximate the discontinuities of the pressure and the velocity derivatives across the interface with high accuracy. As the mesh resolves the interface, regularization of the density and viscosity jumps across the interface is not required. This preserves the local conservation property of the velocity field even in the vicinity of the interface and constitutes a significant advantage compared with standard methods that require regularization of these discontinuities and cannot represent the jumps and kinks in pressure and velocity. A powerful subtessellation algorithm is incorporated to allow the usage of standard time integrators (such as Crank–Nicholson) on the time‐dependent mesh. The presented discretization is applicable to both the two‐dimensional and three‐dimensional cases. The performance of our approach is demonstrated by application to a two‐dimensional benchmark problem, allowing for a thorough comparison with other numerical methods. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An efficient method for discretizing 3D fractured media for subsurface flow and transport simulations

We introduce a new method to discretize inclined non‐planar two‐dimensional (2D) fractures in three‐dimensional (3D) fractured media for subsurface flow and transport simulations. The 2D fractures are represented by ellipsoids. We first discretize the fractures and generate a 2D finite element mesh for each fracture. Then, the mesh of fractures is analyzed by searching and treating critical geometric configurations. Based on that search, the method generates a quality mesh and allows for including finer grids. A solute transport problem in fractured porous media is solved to test the method. The results show that the method (i) adequately represents the fractured domain by maintaining the geometric integrity of input surfaces and geologic data, (ii) provides accurate results for both simple and complex fractured domains, (iii) is insensitive to spatial discretization, and (iv) is computationally very efficient. For inclined and vertical fractures, analytical and numerical solutions are shown to be in good agreement. The method is therefore suitable to discretize fracture networks for flow and transport simulations in fractured porous media. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High‐order ADER‐WENO ALE schemes on unstructured triangular meshes—application of several node solvers to hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics

In this paper, we present a class of high‐order accurate cell‐centered arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) one‐step ADER weighted essentially non‐oscillatory (WENO) finite volume schemes for the solution of nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws on two‐dimensional unstructured triangular meshes. High order of accuracy in space is achieved by a WENO reconstruction algorithm, while a local space–time Galerkin predictor allows the schemes to be high order accurate also in time by using an element‐local weak formulation of the governing PDE on moving meshes. The mesh motion can be computed by choosing among three different node solvers, which are for the first time compared with each other in this article: the node velocity may be obtained either (i) as an arithmetic average among the states surrounding the node, as suggested by Cheng and Shu, or (ii) as a solution of multiple one‐dimensional half‐Riemann problems around a vertex, as suggested by Maire, or (iii) by solving approximately a multidimensional Riemann problem around each vertex of the mesh using the genuinely multidimensional Harten–Lax–van Leer Riemann solver recently proposed by Balsara et al. Once the vertex velocity and thus the new node location have been determined by the node solver, the local mesh motion is then constructed by straight edges connecting the vertex positions at the old time level tⁿ with the new ones at the next time level t^{n + 1}. If necessary, a rezoning step can be introduced here to overcome mesh tangling or highly deformed elements. The final ALE finite volume scheme is based directly on a space–time conservation formulation of the governing PDE system, which therefore makes an additional remapping stage unnecessary, as the ALE fluxes already properly take into account the rezoned geometry. In this sense, our scheme falls into the category of direct ALE methods. Furthermore, the geometric conservation law is satisfied by the scheme by construction. We apply the high‐order algorithm presented in this paper to the Euler equations of compressible gas dynamics as well as to the ideal classical and relativistic magnetohydrodynamic equations. We show numerical convergence results up to fifth order of accuracy in space and time together with some classical numerical test problems for each hyperbolic system under consideration. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Edge‐based reconstruction schemes for unstructured tetrahedral meshes

In this paper, we consider edge‐based reconstruction (EBR) schemes for solving the Euler equations on unstructured tetrahedral meshes. These schemes are based on a high‐accuracy quasi‐1D reconstruction of variables on an extended stencil along the edge‐based direction. For an arbitrary tetrahedral mesh, the EBR schemes provide higher accuracy in comparison with most second‐order schemes at rather low computational costs. The EBR schemes are built in the framework of vertex‐centered formulation for the point‐wise values of variables. Here, we prove the high accuracy of EBR schemes for uniform grid‐like meshes, introduce an economical implementation of quasi‐one‐dimensional reconstruction and the resulting new scheme of EBR family, estimate the computational costs, and give new verification results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unstructured lattice Boltzmann method in three dimensions

Over the last decade, the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) has evolved into a valuable alternative to continuum computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods for the numerical simulation of several complex fluid‐dynamic problems. Recent advances in lattice Boltzmann research have considerably extended the capability of LBM to handle complex geometries. Among these, a particularly remarkable option is represented by cell‐vertex finite‐volume formulations which permit LBM to operate on fully unstructured grids. The two‐dimensional implementation of unstructured LBM, based on the use of triangular elements, has shown capability of tolerating significant grid distortions without suffering any appreciable numerical viscosity effects, to second‐order in the mesh size. In this work, we present the first three‐dimensional generalization of the unstructured lattice Boltzmann technique (ULBE as unstructured lattice Boltzmann equation), in which geometrical flexibility is achieved by coarse‐graining the lattice Boltzmann equation in differential form, using tetrahedrical grids. This 3D extension is demonstrated for the case of 3D pipe flow and moderate Reynolds numbers flow past a sphere. The results provide evidence that the ULBE has significant potential for the accurate calculation of flows in complex 3D geometries. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical simulation of droplet ejection of thermal inkjet printheads

In this study, we present a method to predict the droplet ejection in thermal inkjet printheads including the growth and collapse of a vapor bubble and refill of the firing chamber. The three‐dimensional Navier–Stokes equations are solved using a finite‐volume approach with a fixed Cartesian mesh. The piecewise‐linear interface calculation‐based volume‐of‐fluid method is employed to track and reconstruct the ink–air interface. A geometrical computation based on Lagrangian advection is used to compute the mass flux and advance the interface. A simple and efficient model for the bubble dynamics is employed to model the effect of ink vapor on the adjacent ink liquid. To solve the surface tension‐dominated flow accurately, a hierarchical curvature‐estimation method is proposed to adapt to the local grid resolution. The numerical methods mentioned earlier have been implemented in an internal simulation code, CFD3. The numerical examples presented in the study show good performance of CFD3 in prediction of surface tension‐dominated free‐surface flows, for example, droplet ejection in thermal inkjet printing. Currently, CFD3 is used extensively for printhead development within Hewlett‐Packard. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A parallel cell‐based DSMC method on unstructured adaptive meshes

A parallel DSMC method based on a cell‐based data structure is developed for the efficient simulation of rarefied gas flows on PC‐clusters. Parallel computation is made by decomposing the computational domain into several subdomains. Dynamic load balancing between processors is achieved based on the number of simulation particles and the number of cells allocated in each subdomain. Adjustment of cell size is also made through mesh adaptation for the improvement of solution accuracy and the efficient usage of meshes. Applications were made for a two‐dimensional supersonic leading‐edge flow, the axi‐symmetric Rothe's nozzle, and the open hollow cylinder flare flow for validation. It was found that the present method is an efficient tool for the simulation of rarefied gas flows on PC‐based parallel machines. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.