An asymptotic iteration method for the numerical analysis of near-critical free-surface flows

Satisfying the boundary conditions at the free surface may impose severe difficulties to the computation of turbulent open-channel flows with finite-volume or finite-element methods, in particular, when the flow conditions are nearly critical. It is proposed to apply an iteration procedure that is based on an asymptotic expansion for large Reynolds numbers and Froude numbers close to the critical value 1.The iteration procedure starts by prescribing a first approximation for the free surface as it is obtained from solving an ODE that has been derived previously by means of an asymptotic expansion (Grillhofer and Schneider, 2003). The numerical solution of the full equations of motion then gives a surface pressure distribution that differs from the constant value required by the dynamic boundary condition. To determine a correction to the elevation of the free surface we next solve an ODE that is obtained from the asymptotic analysis of the flow with a prescribed pressure disturbance at the free surface. The full equations of motion are then solved for the corrected surface, and the procedure is repeated until criteria of accuracy for surface elevation and surface pressure, respectively, are satisfied.The method is applied to an undular hydraulic jump as a test case.