On the efficient application of weighted essentially nonoscillatory scheme

In this paper, the efficient application of high‐order weighted essentially nonoscillatory (WENO) reconstruction to the subsonic and transonic engineering problems is studied. On the basis of the physical considerations, two techniques are proposed to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of the WENO reconstruction. First, it is observed that the WENO scheme using characteristic variable has better accuracy and convergence speed than the scheme using primitive variable. For engineering problems with shock of moderate amplitude, on the basis of the Rankine–Hugoniot conditions, a simplified characteristic‐variable‐based WENO is developed. The simplified version significantly reduces the cost overhead without sacrificing the shock‐capturing capability. Second, in this work, it is found for viscous case that it is better to include the viscous effect. On the basis of a simple analysis, the viscous correction to the parameter ε in the WENO reconstruction is proposed. Numerical results indicate, with the proposed simplified characteristic‐variable‐based reconstruction and the viscous correction, that the nonlinear WENO interpolation is sharply activated in the region of shock jump, whereas in the shockless area, the WENO interpolation weights are tuned towards the designed optimal value for better accuracy. Compared with the original characteristic‐variable‐based WENO, the current implementation has similar accuracy and reduced cost. At the same time, compared with the primitive variable‐based WENO, better accuracy and convergence speed are obtained at marginal cost overhead. Several practical cases are calculated to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the current methodology. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unified semi‐analytical wall boundary conditions for inviscid,laminar or turbulent flows in the meshless SPH method

Wall boundary conditions in smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is a key issue to perform accurate simulations. We propose here a new approach based on a renormalising factor for writing all boundary terms. This factor depends on the local shape of a wall and on the position of a particle relative to the wall, which is described by segments (in two‐dimensions), instead of the cumbersome fictitious or ghost particles used in most existing SPH models. By solving a dynamic equation for the renormalising factor, we significantly improve traditional wall treatment in SPH, for pressure forces, wall friction and turbulent conditions. The new model is demonstrated for cases including hydrostatic conditions for still water in a tank of complex geometry and a dam break over triangular bed profile with sharp angle where significant improved behaviour is obtained in comparison with the conventional boundary techniques. The latter case is also compared with a finite volume and volume‐of‐fluid scheme. The performance of the model for a two‐dimensional laminar flow in a channel is demonstrated where the profiles of velocity are in agreement with the theoretical ones, demonstrating that the derived wall shear stress balances the pressure gradient. Finally, the performance of the model is demonstrated for flow in a schematic fish pass where both the velocity field and turbulent viscosity fields are satisfactorily reproduced compared with mesh‐based codes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Weighted averaged equations for modeling velocity profiles of 1D steady open channel flows

A new mathematical algorithm is proposed to address the essential details of vertical distributions of horizontal velocity for one‐dimensional steady open‐channel flow. This new algorithm comprises a system of weighted averaged equations developed from corresponding Reynolds equations by performing weighted average operations instead of conventional depth average operations. It is the system of weighted averaged equations, instead of the vertical grids, that allows for more hydraulic coefficients identifiable. It can be thought of as an extension of the St. Venant equations to address the vertical distributions of horizontal velocities, as well as the water surface profiles. To avoid the difficult expansion of governing partial differential equations in high order, an indirect scheme is proposed to solve hydraulic variables through their weighted average values. The governing partial differential equations are generated by using a variety of weight functions, and the weighted averages of relevant hydraulic variables are taken as the unknown independent variables to be solved first. Then, on the basis of the values and polynomial expansions of these weighted averaged velocities, a system of linear algebraic equations is generated and the unknown hydraulic variables or their coefficients are easily solved. Note that the new model is not proposed to compete with any three‐dimensional models in modeling accuracy or accommodation ability to all conditions. It just provides a valuable option to study the vertical structure of flow in open channels where only essential detail and reasonable accuracy of vertical distributions are required, and the data availability and other conditions limit the application of fully three‐dimensional models. The performance of the model is evaluated with experimental data of flows in two different flumes. It is shown that the model well predicted the velocity profiles of sections along the centerlines of these flumes with reasonable accuracy and essential details of vertical distributions of horizontal velocity. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Heat flow disturbed by periodic array of insulated interface cracks

The thermal effects of an interface crack between two dissimilar half-spaces is considered. The interface cracks are partially or fully insulated, and spaced in a periodic array. Using the complex variable technique, the temperature and fluxes are found in closed form, and the interactions between heat flows due to nearby cracks are determined.     

A hybrid DSMC/Navier–Stokes frame to solve mixed rarefied/nonrarefied hypersonic flows over nano‐plate and micro‐cylinder

We extend a hybrid DSMC/Navier–Stokes (NS) approach to unify the DSMC and the NS simulators in one framework capable of solving the mixed non‐equilibrium and near‐equilibrium flow regions efficiently. Furthermore, we use a one‐way state‐based coupling (Dirichlet–Dirichlet boundary‐condition coupling) to transfer the required information from the continuum region to the rarefied one. The current hybrid DSMC–NS frame is applied to the hypersonic flows over nanoflat plate and microcylinder cases. The achieved solutions are compared with the pure DSMC and NS solutions. The results show that the current hybrid approach predicts the surface heat transfer rate and shear stress magnitudes very accurately. Some important conclusions can be drawn from this study. For example, although the shock wave region would be a non‐equilibrium region, it is not necessary to use a pure DSMC simulator to solve it entirely. This is important when the researchers wish to predict the surface properties such as velocity slip, temperature jump, wall heat flux rate, and friction drag magnitudes accurately. Our investigation showed that our hybrid solution time would be at least 40% (for the flat plate) and 35% (for the cylinder) of the time that must be spent by a pure DSMC solver to attain the same accuracy.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Study on the flow resistance of the dispersion system of deformable preformed particle gel in porous media using LBM-DEM-IMB method

After being injected into the porous media, the dispersion system of preformed particle gel (PPG) tends to enter high permeability regions and block water channeling passages, which forces the subsequent water to turn to the low permeability regions and thus increases sweep efficiency and enhances oil recovery. However, it is still unclear about the influence factors and the mechanisms how PPG increases water flow resistance, which limits the application of PPG in more oilfields. Therefore, the paper combines the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), the discrete element method (DEM) and the improved immersed moving boundary (IMB) method to simulate the migration of deformable PPG in porous media. On the basis, the paper quantitatively analyzes the variation law of displacement pressure across the porous media and discusses the influence factors such as the PPG diameter, elasticity modulus and the number concentration. Results indicate that, because of the friction and retention of PPG in pore-throat, the displacement pressure across the porous media during PPG flooding is much higher than that during water flooding. In other words, the existence of PPG increases the flow resistance of injected water. Besides, the displacement pressure is always fluctuant resulting from the continuous process of PPG migration, retention, deformation and remigration. Influence factor analysis shows that the incremental value and fluctuation degree of flow resistance increase with the PPG diameter, elasticity modulus and the number concentration. The study not only provides useful reference for future PPG flooding, but also benefits the development of deformable particle flow theory.     

Magnetically-driven heat transport device using a binary temperature-sensitive magnetic fluid

The magnetic body force in boiling two-phase temperature-sensitive magnetic fluid (TSMF) flow is known to effectively increase the driving force of magnetic fluid in a non-uniform magnetic field. Based on this mechanism, in the present study, a binary TSMF, which is a mixture of the TSMF and a low-boiling-saturation-temperature organic solution, is proposed to be used in a heat transport device to enhance its circulation. In order to see its performance in the heat transport device, the pressure difference at different heated temperatures, magnetic fields and inclination angles of the heating section are investigated experimentally and theoretically. Results showed that the driving force increases remarkably due to more gas phase appearing in the test fluid and the magnetization of it decreasing. At low magnetic field the driving force is enhanced greatly when the inclination angle is close to 60°, while at high magnetic field the driving force is remarkably enhanced due to the effect of the magnetic force in the inclination angle range from 0° to 30° and 60° to 90°.     

Comparison of several models for multi-size bubbly flows on an adiabatic experiment

This paper deals with the modelling and numerical simulation of isothermal bubbly flows with multi-size bubbles. The study of isothermal bubbly flows without phase change is a first step towards the more general study of boiling bubbly flows. Here, we are interested in taking into account the features of such isothermal flow associated to the multiple sizes of the different bubbles simultaneously present inside the flow. With this aim, several approaches have been developed. In this paper, two of these approaches are described and their results are compared to experimental data, as well as to those of an older approach assuming a single average size of bubbles. These two approaches are (i) the moment density approach for which two different expressions for the bubble diameter distribution function are proposed and (ii) the multi-field approach. All the models are implemented into the NEPTUNE_CFD code and are compared to a test performed on the MTLOOP facility. These comparisons show their respective merits and shortcomings in their available state of development.     

Numerical simulation of 2D lid‐driven cavity flow with CLEARER algorithm on extremely highly skewed grids at high Reynolds numbers

It is crucial to deal with the grid non‐orthogonality effectively in solving the flow in complex geometries, especially at high Reynolds numbers. In this study, the newly proposed Coupled and Linked Equations Algorithm Revised‐ER (CLEARER) algorithm is adopted to solve this problem successfully. In CLEARER algorithm the second relaxation factor is introduced in constructing the contravariant interface velocities, by setting it to a low value. CLEARER algorithm can overcome the severe grid non‐orthogonality and non‐linearity of equations effectively. After the numerical results with CLEARER are validated with the benchmark solutions, this algorithm is used to solve the lid‐driven flow in inclined cavity with inclination angles varying from 10 to 170^°, and Reynolds numbers varying from 5000 to 15 000. The streamlines and the centerline velocity distributions are provided in detail for all cases, which may offer some guidance for the study in this area. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.