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.     

A new stable space–time formulation for two‐dimensional and three‐dimensional incompressible viscous flow

A space–time finite element method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in a bounded domain in ?^d (with d=2 or 3) is presented. The method is based on the time‐discontinuous Galerkin method with the use of simplex‐type meshes together with the requirement that the space–time finite element discretization for the velocity and the pressure satisfy the inf–sup stability condition of Brezzi and Babu?ka. The finite element discretization for the pressure consists of piecewise linear functions, while piecewise linear functions enriched with a bubble function are used for the velocity. The stability proof and numerical results for some two‐dimensional problems are presented. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High‐order time integrators for front‐tracking finite‐element analysis of viscous free‐surface flows

This paper proposes implicit Runge–Kutta (IRK) time integrators to improve the accuracy of a front‐tracking finite‐element method for viscous free‐surface flow predictions. In the front‐tracking approach, the modeling equations must be solved on a moving domain, which is usually performed using an arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) frame of reference. One of the main difficulties associated with the ALE formulation is related to the accuracy of the time integration procedure. Indeed, most formulations reported in the literature are limited to second‐order accurate time integrators at best. In this paper, we present a finite‐element ALE formulation in which a consistent evaluation of the mesh velocity and its divergence guarantees satisfaction of the discrete geometrical conservation law. More importantly, it also ensures that the high‐order fixed mesh temporal accuracy of time integrators is preserved on deforming grids. It is combined with the use of a family of L‐stable IRK time integrators for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations to yield high‐order time‐accurate free‐surface simulations. This is demonstrated in the paper using the method of manufactured solution in space and time as recommended in Verification and Validation. In particular, we report up to fifth‐order accuracy in time. The proposed free‐surface front‐tracking approach is then validated against cases of practical interest such as sloshing in a tank, solitary waves propagation, and coupled interaction between a wave and a submerged cylinder. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An implicit edge‐based ALE method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

A new finite volume method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations, expressed in arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) form, is presented. The method uses a staggered storage arrangement for the pressure and velocity variables and adopts an edge‐based data structure and assembly procedure which is valid for arbitrary n‐sided polygonal meshes. Edge formulas are presented for assembling the ALE form of the momentum and pressure equations. An implicit multi‐stage time integrator is constructed that is geometrically conservative to the precision of the arithmetic used in the computation. The method is shown to be second‐order‐accurate in time and space for general time‐dependent polygonal meshes. The method is first evaluated using several well‐known unsteady incompressible Navier–Stokes problems before being applied to a periodically forced aeroelastic problem and a transient free surface problem. Published in 2003 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developing a unified FVE‐ALE approach to solve unsteady fluid flow with moving boundaries

In this study, an arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) approach is incorporated with a mixed finite‐volume–element (FVE) method to establish a novel moving boundary method for simulating unsteady incompressible flow on non‐stationary meshes. The method collects the advantages of both finite‐volume and finite‐element (FE) methods as well as the ALE approach in a unified algorithm. In this regard, the convection terms are treated at the cell faces using a physical‐influence upwinding scheme, while the diffusion terms are treated using bilinear FE shape functions. On the other hand, the performance of ALE approach is improved by using the Laplace method to improve the hybrid grids, involving triangular and quadrilateral elements, either partially or entirely. The use of hybrid FE grids facilitates this achievement. To show the robustness of the unified algorithm, we examine both the first‐ and the second‐order temporal stencils. The accuracy and performance of the extended method are evaluated via simulating the unsteady flow fields around a fixed cylinder, a transversely oscillating cylinder, and in a channel with an indented wall. The numerical results presented demonstrate significant accuracy benefits for the new hybrid method on coarse meshes and where large time steps are taken. Of importance, the current method yields the second‐order temporal accuracy when the second‐order stencil is used to discretize the unsteady terms. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A fully discrete ALE method over untwisted time–space control volumes

In this paper, a fully discrete high‐resolution arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) method is developed over untwisted time–space control volumes. In the framework of the finite volume method, 2D Euler equations are discretized over untwisted moving control volumes, and the resulting numerical flux is computed using the generalized Riemann problem solver. Then, the fluid flows between meshes at two successive time steps can be updated without a remapping process in the classic ALE method. This remapping‐free ALE method directly couples the mesh motion into a physical variable update to reflect the temporal evolution in the whole process. An untwisted moving mesh is generated in terms of the vorticity‐free part of the fluid velocity according to the Helmholtz theorem. Some typical numerical tests show the competitive performance of the current method. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Footbridge between finite volumes and finite elements with applications to CFD

The aim of this paper is to introduce a new algorithm for the discretization of second‐order elliptic operators in the context of finite volume schemes on unstructured meshes. We are strongly motivated by partial differential equations (PDEs) arising in computational fluid dynamics (CFD), like the compressible Navier–Stokes equations. Our technique consists of matching up a finite volume discretization based on a given mesh with a finite element representation on the same mesh. An inverse operator is also built, which has the desirable property that in the absence of diffusion, one recovers exactly the finite volume solution. Numerical results are also provided. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managing false diffusion during second‐order upwind simulations of liquid micromixing

Liquid mixing is an important component of many microfluidic concepts and devices, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is playing a key role in their development and optimization. Because liquid mass diffusivities can be quite small, CFD simulation of liquid micromixing can over predict the degree of mixing unless numerical (or false) diffusion is properly controlled. Unfortunately, the false diffusion behavior of higher‐order finite volume schemes, which are often used for such simulations, is not well understood, especially on unstructured meshes. To examine and quantify the amount of false diffusion associated with the often recommended and versatile second‐order upwind method, a series of numerical simulations was conducted using a standardized two‐dimensional test problem on both structured and unstructured meshes. This enabled quantification of an ‘effective’ false diffusion coefficient (D_false) for the method as a function of mesh spacing. Based on the results of these simulations, expressions were developed for estimating the spacing required to reduce D_false to some desired (low) level. These expressions, together with additional insights from the standardized test problem and findings from other researchers, were then incorporated into a procedure for managing false diffusion when simulating steady, liquid micromixing. To demonstrate its utility, the procedure was applied to simulate flow and mixing within a representative micromixer geometry using both unstructured (triangular) and structured meshes. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A nodal Godunov method for Lagrangian shock hydrodynamics on unstructured tetrahedral grids

We present a nodal Godunov method for Lagrangian shock hydrodynamics. The method is designed to operate on three‐dimensional unstructured grids composed of tetrahedral cells. A node‐centered finite element formulation avoids mesh stiffness, and an approximate Riemann solver in the fluid reference frame ensures a stable, upwind formulation. This choice leads to a non‐zero mass flux between control volumes, even though the mesh moves at the fluid velocity, but eliminates volume errors that arise due to the difference between the fluid velocity and the contact wave speed. A monotone piecewise linear reconstruction of primitive variables is used to compute interface unknowns and recover second‐order accuracy. The scheme has been tested on a variety of standard test problems and exhibits first‐order accuracy on shock problems and second‐order accuracy on smooth flows using meshes of up to O(10⁶) tetrahedra. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A high‐precision unstructured adaptive mesh technique for gas–liquid two‐phase flows

Adaptive mesh techniques are used widely in the numerical simulations of fluid flows, and the simulation results with high accuracies are obtained by appropriate mesh adaptations. However, gas–liquid two‐phase flows are still difficult to be simulated on adaptive meshes, especially on unstructured adaptive meshes, because the physical phenomena near gas–liquid interfaces are highly complicated and in general, not modeled appropriately on adaptive meshes. In this paper, a high‐precision unstructured adaptive mesh technique for gas–liquid two‐phase flows is developed and verified/validated. In the unstructured adaptive mesh technique, the PLIC algorithm is employed to simulate interfacial dynamic behaviors and, therefore, the reconstruction method for the interfaces in refined cells is developed, which satisfies the gas and liquid volume conservations and geometrical conservations of interfaces. In addition, the physics‐based consideration is performed on the momentum calculations near interfaces, and the calculation method with gas and liquid momentum conservations is developed. For verification, the slotted‐disk revolution problem is solved. As a result, the unstructured adaptive mesh technique succeeds in reproducing the slotted‐disk shape accurately and well maintaining the shape after one full‐revolution. The dam‐break problem is also simulated and the momentum conservative calculation method succeeds in providing physically appropriate results, which show good agreements with experimental data. Therefore, it is confirmed that the developed unstructured adaptive mesh technique is very efficient to simulate gas–liquid two‐phase flows accurately. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An L2‐stable approximation of the Navier–Stokes convection operator for low‐order non‐conforming finite elements

We develop in this paper a discretization for the convection term in variable density unstationary Navier–Stokes equations, which applies to low‐order non‐conforming finite element approximations (the so‐called Crouzeix–Raviart or Rannacher–Turek elements). This discretization is built by a finite volume technique based on a dual mesh. It is shown to enjoy an L² stability property, which may be seen as a discrete counterpart of the kinetic energy conservation identity. In addition, numerical experiments confirm the robustness and the accuracy of this approximation; in particular, in L² norm, second‐order space convergence for the velocity and first‐order space convergence for the pressure are observed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mixed‐order interpolation for the Galerkin coarse‐grid approximations in algebraic multigrid solvers

An empirical investigation is made of AMG solver performance for the fully coupled set of Navier–Stokes equations. The investigation focuses on two different FV discretizations for the standard driven cavity test problem. One is a collocated vertex‐based discretization; the other is a cell‐centred staggered‐grid discretization. Both employ otherwise identical orthogonal Cartesian meshes. It is found that if mixed‐order interpolation is used in the construction of the Galerkin coarse‐grid approximation (CGA), a close‐to‐optimum mesh‐independent scaling of the AMG convergence is observed with similar convergence rates for both discretizations. If, on the other hand, an equal‐order interpolation is used, convergence rates are mesh‐dependent but the scaling differs in each case. For the collocated‐grid case, it depends both on the mesh size, h (or bandwidth Q～h^?1) and on the total number of grids, G, whereas for the staggered‐grid case it depends only on Q. Comparing the two characteristics reveals that the Q‐dependent parts are very similar; it is only in the G‐dependent convergence for the collocated‐grid case that they differ. This takes the form of stepped reductions in the AMG convergence rate (implying step reductions in the quality of the Galerkin CGA that correlate exactly with step increases in G). These findings reinforce previous evidence that, for optimum mesh‐independent performance, mixed‐order interpolations should be used in forming Galerkin CGAs for coupled Navier–Stokes problems. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A 3D incompressible Navier–Stokes velocity–vorticity weak form finite element algorithm

The velocity–vorticity formulation is selected to develop a time‐accurate CFD finite element algorithm for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in three dimensions.The finite element implementation uses equal order trilinear finite elements on a non‐staggered hexahedral mesh. A second order vorticity kinematic boundary condition is derived for the no slip wall boundary condition which also enforces the incompressibility constraint. A biconjugate gradient stabilized (BiCGSTAB) sparse iterative solver is utilized to solve the fully coupled system of equations as a Newton algorithm. The solver yields an efficient parallel solution algorithm on distributed‐memory machines, such as the IBM SP2. Three dimensional laminar flow solutions for a square channel, a lid‐driven cavity, and a thermal cavity are established and compared with available benchmark solutions. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anisotropic mesh adaption for time‐dependent problems

We propose a space–time adaptive procedure for a model parabolic problem based on a theoretically sound anisotropic a posteriori error analysis. A space–time finite element scheme (continuous in space but discontinuous in time) is employed to discretize this problem, thus allowing for non‐matching meshes at different time levels. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessment of a discontinuous Galerkin method for the simulation of vortical flows at high Reynolds number

This paper focuses on the assessment of a discontinuous Galerkin method for the simulation of vortical flows at high Reynolds number. The Taylor–Green vortex at Re = 1600 is considered. The results are compared with those obtained using a pseudo‐spectral solver, converged on a 512³ grid and taken as the reference. The temporal evolution of the dissipation rate, visualisations of the vortical structures and the kinetic energy spectrum at the instant of maximal dissipation are compared to assess the results. At an effective resolution of 288³, the fourth‐order accurate discontinuous Galerkin method (DGM) solution (p = 3) is already very close to the pseudo‐spectral reference; the error on the dissipation rate is then essentially less than a percent, and the vorticity contours at times around the dissipation peak overlap everywhere. At a resolution of 384³, the solutions are indistinguishable. Then, an order convergence study is performed on the slightly under‐resolved grid (resolution of 192³). From the fourth order, the decrease of the error is no longer significant when going to a higher order. The fourth‐order DGM is also compared with an energy conserving fourth‐order finite difference method (FD4). The results show that, for the same number of DOF and the same order of accuracy, the errors of the DGM computation are significantly smaller. In particular, it takes 768³ DOF to converge the FD4 solution. Finally, the method is also successfully applied on unstructured high quality meshes. It is found that the dissipation rate captured is not significantly impacted by the element type. However, the element type impacts the energy spectrum in the large wavenumber range and thus the small vortical structures. In particular, at the same resolution, the results obtained using a tetrahedral mesh are much noisier than those obtained using a hexahedral mesh. Those obtained using a prismatic mesh are already much better, yet still slightly noisier. Copyright © 2013 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.     

Numerical simulation of viscous flow interaction with an elastic membrane

A numerical fluid–structure interaction model is developed for the analysis of viscous flow over elastic membrane structures. The Navier–Stokes equations are discretized on a moving body‐fitted unstructured triangular grid using the finite volume method, taking into account grid non‐orthogonality, and implementing the SIMPLE algorithm for pressure solution, power law implicit differencing and Rhie–Chow explicit mass flux interpolations. The membrane is discretized as a set of links that coincide with a subset of the fluid mesh edges. A new model is introduced to distribute local and global elastic effects to aid stability of the structure model and damping effects are also included. A pseudo‐structural approach using a balance of mesh edge spring tensions and cell internal pressures controls the motion of fluid mesh nodes based on the displacements of the membrane. Following initial validation, the model is applied to the case of a two‐dimensional membrane pinned at both ends at an angle of attack of 4° to the oncoming flow, at a Reynolds number based on the chord length of 4 × 10³. A series of tests on membranes of different elastic stiffness investigates their unsteady movements over time. The membranes of higher elastic stiffness adopt a stable equilibrium shape, while the membrane of lowest elastic stiffness demonstrates unstable interactions between its inflated shape and the resulting unsteady wake. These unstable effects are shown to be significantly magnified by the flexible nature of the membrane compared with a rigid surface of the same average shape. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Positivity‐preserving,flux‐limited finite‐difference and finite‐element methods for reactive transport

A new class of positivity‐preserving, flux‐limited finite‐difference and Petrov–Galerkin (PG) finite‐element methods are devised for reactive transport problems.The methods are similar to classical TVD flux‐limited schemes with the main difference being that the flux‐limiter constraint is designed to preserve positivity for problems involving diffusion and reaction. In the finite‐element formulation, we also consider the effect of numerical quadrature in the lumped and consistent mass matrix forms on the positivity‐preserving property. Analysis of the latter scheme shows that positivity‐preserving solutions of the resulting difference equations can only be guaranteed if the flux‐limited scheme is both implicit and satisfies an additional lower‐bound condition on time‐step size. We show that this condition also applies to standard Galerkin linear finite‐element approximations to the linear diffusion equation. Numerical experiments are provided to demonstrate the behavior of the methods and confirm the theoretical conditions on time‐step size, mesh spacing, and flux limiting for transport problems with and without nonlinear reaction. Copyright © 2003 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.