Reduced order modelling method via proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) for flow around an oscillating cylinder

This paper presents reduced order modelling (ROM) in fluid–structure interaction (FSI). The ROM via the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method has been chosen, due to its efficiency in the domain of fluid mechanics. POD-ROM is based on a low-order dynamical system obtained by projecting the nonlinear Navier–Stokes equations on a smaller number of POD modes. These POD modes are spatial and temporally independent. In FSI, the fluid and structure domains are moving, owing to which the POD method cannot be applied directly to reduce the equations of each domain. This article proposes to compute the POD modes for a global velocity field (fluid and solid), and then to construct a low-order dynamical system. The structure domain can be decomposed as a rigid domain, with a finite number of degrees of freedom. This low-order dynamical system is obtained by using a multiphase method similar to the fictitious domain method. This multiphase method extends the Navier–Stokes equations to the solid domain by using a penalisation method and a Lagrangian multiplier. By projecting these equations on the POD modes obtained for the global velocity field, a nonlinear low-order dynamical system is obtained and tested on a case of high Reynolds number.     

Experimental investigation of flow over a backward-facing step in proximity to a flexible wall

Turbulent flow between a flexible wall and a solid surface containing a backward-facing step (BFS) was investigated using digital particle image velocimetry and high-speed photography. Stationary sheet of paper under tension was positioned above the solid surface in proximity to the BFS. The incoming air flow emerged from a planar nozzle that was located in the solid wall upstream of the BFS. Flows corresponding to two values of the Reynolds number (3,000 and 3,600) based on the step height and the maximum flow velocity at the step location were characterized in terms of patterns of time-averaged velocity, out-of-plane vorticity, streamline topology, and turbulence statistics. In addition, paper sheet oscillation was characterized using high-speed photography. For the control case of a solid upper wall with the geometry that represented the time-averaged paper profile, hydrodynamic frequencies were characterized using unsteady pressure measurements. Frequencies of the natural vibration modes of the paper sheet were well separated from the hydrodynamic frequencies corresponding to the oscillations of the shear layer downstream of the BFS. As the inflow velocity increased, the paper sheet was pulled closer to the solid surface, which resulted in increased confinement of the incoming jet. The flow reattachment length calculated on the basis of time-averaged flow patterns increased with the increasing Reynolds number.     

PIV measurements of turbulent flows in a 61-pin wire-wrapped hexagonal fuel bundle

The current work experimentally investigates the flow characteristics in the near-wall region of the 61-pin wire-wrapped hexagon fuel bundle via the matched-index-of-refraction technique. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements were taken in the region near the surfaces of the pins, wires and enclosure wall at the Reynolds number of 19,000. From the obtained PIV velocity vector fields, flow statistics such as mean velocity and root-mean-square fluctuating velocity profiles were computed. In addition, spatial-temporal cross-correlations of velocity-velocity and pressure-velocity were analyzed. A strong correlation between the wall fluctuating pressure signal and flow structures was observed. Finally, we applied the POD analysis to the vorticity snapshots obtained in the near-wall region to reveal the dominant flow structures. It was found that the large-scale structures were elongated and aligned with the mean flow direction.     

Meandering jets in shallow rectangular reservoirs: POD analysis and identification of coherent structures

The effect of the shallowness on meandering jets in a shallow rectangular reservoir is investigated. Four meandering flows were investigated in an experimental shallow rectangular reservoir. Their boundary conditions were chosen to cover a large range of friction numbers (defined with the sudden expansion width). Due to the unsteady characteristics of the flows, a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) of the fluctuating part of the surface velocity fields measured using Large-Scale Particle Image Velocity was used for discriminating the flow structures responsible for the meandering of the jet. Less than 1 % of the calculated POD modes significantly contribute to the meandering of the jet, and two types of instability are in competition in such a flow configuration. The sinuous mode is the dominant mode in the flow, and it induces the meandering of the flow, while the varicose mode is a source of local mixing and weakly participates to the flow. The fluctuating velocity fields were then reconstructed using the POD modes corresponding to 80 % of the total mean fluctuating kinetic energy, and the coherent structures were identified using the residual vorticity, their centres being localised using a topology algorithm. The trajectories of the structures centres emphasise that at high friction number the coherent structures are small and laterally paired in the near, middle and far fields of the jet, while with decreasing friction number, the structures merge into large horizontal vortices in the far field of the jet, their trajectories showing more variability in space and time. The analysis of the stability regime finally reveals that the sinuous mode is convectively unstable and may become absolutely unstable at the end of the reservoir when the friction number is small.     

Three-dimensional vortex wake structure of a flapping-wing micro aerial vehicle in forward flight configuration

The unsteady flow field past a backward-facing step in a rectangular duct is investigated by adopting time-resolved particle image velocimetry (PIV) in the Reynolds number range of 2,640–9,880 based on step height and the inlet average velocity. The PIV realizations are subjected to post-processing techniques, namely, proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD). At low Reynolds numbers, the second spatial POD modes indicate the presence of the shear layer mode, whereas this feature shifts to higher modes at higher Reynolds numbers. The corresponding temporal modes are Fourier-transformed to obtain the dominant frequency, whose Strouhal number corroborates the above observation. Short-time windows in the transverse velocity component along the shear layer are selected to investigate the temporal stability of the flow field by DMD to quantify the growth rate of the shear layer mode. The higher harmonics of this mode are also observed to grow, albeit at lesser rate. By relating to POD analysis, the most energetic structures were found to correspond to the unstable modes. The correlation between these unstable DMD modes and the Fourier-filtered flow fields for the same frequencies indicate better match for the lower operating Reynolds number case as compared to higher ones. The spatial stability analysis demonstrates the growth of the shear layer vortices, which is combined with the temporal stability analysis to evaluate the phase velocity of the identified shear layer structures. The calculated phase velocity magnitude of the shear layer is found to be reasonably below the local velocity as expected.     

Analysis and reconstruction of a pulsed jet in crossflow by multi-plane snapshot POD

In this work, snapshot proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is used to study a pulsed jet in crossflow where the velocity fields are extracted from stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (SPIV) results. The studied pulsed jet is characterized by a frequency f = 1 Hz, a Reynolds number Re _j  = 500 (based on the mean jet velocity ${\overline{U}_{j}}$  = 1.67 cm/s and a mean velocity ratio of R = 1). Pulsed jet and continuous jet are compared via mean velocity field trajectory and Q criterion. POD results of instantaneous, phase-averaged and fluctuating velocity fields are presented and compared in this paper. Snapshot POD applied on one plane allows us to distinguish an organization of the first spatial eigenmodes. A distinction between “natural modes” and “pulsed modes” is achieved with the results obtained by the pulsed and unforced jet. Secondly, the correlation tensor is established with four parallel planes (multi-plane snapshot POD) for the evaluation of volume spatial modes. These resulting modes are interpolated and the volume velocity field is reconstructed with a minimal number of modes for all the times of the pulsation period. These reconstructions are compared to orthogonal measurements to the transverse jet in order to validate the obtained three-dimensional velocity fields. Finally, this POD approach for the 3D flow field reconstruction from experimental data issued from planes parallel to the flow seems capable to extract relevant information from a complex three-dimensional flow and can be an alternative to tomo-PIV for large volume of measurement.     

Effects of Periodic Excitation on the Flow Around a D-Shaped Cylinder at Low Reynolds Numbers

The baseline and forced flow around a bluff body with semi-elliptical D-shape was investigated by solving the 2D Navier–Stokes equations at low Reynolds numbers. A D-shape rather than the canonic circular-cylinder was selected due to the fixed separation points in the latter, enabling to study a pure wake rather than boundary-layer control. The correlation between Strouhal and Reynolds numbers, the mean drag, the lift and drag oscillations vs. the Reynolds number and wake structure were investigated and compared to experimental and numerical data. Effects of open-loop forcing, resulting from the influence of zero-mass-flux actuators located at the fixed separation points, were studied at a Reynolds number of 150. Fluidic rather than body motion or volume forcing was selected due to applicability considerations. The motivation for the study was to quantify the changes in the flow field features, as captured by Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) analysis, due to open-loop forcing, inside and outside the “lock-in” regime. This is done in order to evaluate the suitability of low-order-models based on POD modes of this changing flow field, for future feed-back flow control studies. The evolution of the natural and the excited vortices in the Kármán wake were also investigated. The formation and convection regions of the vortex evolution were documented. It was found that the forcing causes an earlier detachment of the vortices from the boundary-layers, but does not affect their circulation or convection speeds. The results of the POD analysis of the near-wake flow show that the influence of the bluff body shape (“D”-shaped versus circular cylinder) on the baseline POD wake modes is small. It was found that the eigenfunctions (mode-shapes) of the POD velocity modes are less sensitive to slot excitation than the vorticity modes. As a result of the open-loop excitation, two types of mode-shape-change were observed: a mode can be exchanged with a lower-energy mode or shifted to a low energy level. In the latter case, the most energetic mode becomes the “actuator” mode. The evolution of one-slot excitation on still fluid (“Synthetic jet”) was studied and compared to published data and to “actuator” modes with external flow present. Based on the current findings, it is hypothesized that the cross-flow velocity POD modes are suitable for feedback control of wake flow using periodic excitation, due to their low sensitivity to the excitation as compared to the streamwise velocity or vorticity modes.     

Three-dimensional flow structure in highly buoyant jet by scanning stereo PIV combined with POD analysis

The flow characteristics and the structure of highly buoyant jet of low density fluid issuing into a stagnant surrounding of high density fluid is studied by scanning stereo PIV combined with proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) analysis. The experiment is carried out at Froude number of 0.3 and Reynolds number of 200, which satisfies the inflow condition due to the unstable density gradient near the nozzle exit. An increase in the maximum mean velocity occurs and the vertical velocity fluctuation is highly amplified near the nozzle exit, which suggests the influence of inflow due to the unstable density gradient. The POD analysis indicates that the vertical velocity fluctuation is the major source of fluctuating energy contributing to the development of the highly buoyant jet. The examination of the POD modes show that the longitudinal structure of the vertical velocity fluctuation is generated along the jet axis having the opposite sign of velocity fluctuation on both sides of the jet axis. The vertical scale of the POD mode decreases with increasing the mode number and results in the frequent appearance of cross-flow across the buoyant jet. The reconstruction flow from the POD modes indicates that the vortex structure is caused by the highly sheared layer between the upward and downward velocity and the inflow is induced by the vortex structure. The magnitude of the vortex structure seems to be weakened with an increase in the distance from the nozzle and the buoyant jet approaches to an asymptotic state in the further downstream.     

Particle image velocimetry measurements of a backward-facing step flow

Particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements were carried out on a backward-facing step flow at a Reynolds number of Re_h=U_Xh/9=4,660 (based on step height and freestream velocity). In-plane velocity, out-of-plane vorticity, Reynolds stress and turbulent kinetic energy production measurements in the x-y and x-z planes of the flow are presented. Proper orthogonal decomposition was performed on both the fluctuating velocity and vorticity fields of the x-y plane PIV data using the method of snapshots. Low-order representations of the instantaneous velocity fields were reconstructed using the velocity modes. These reconstructions provided insight into the contribution that the various length scales make to the spatial distribution of mean and turbulent flow quantities such as Reynolds stress and turbulent kinetic energy production. Large scales are found to contribute to the Reynolds stresses and turbulent kinetic energy production downstream of reattachment, while small scales contribute to the intense Reynolds stresses in the vicinity of reattachment.     

Turbulence Filter and POD Analysis for Velocity Fields in Lifted CH4-Air Diffusion Flames

The turbulence filter and the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD)methods are applied to PIV measurements of lifted CH₄-air diffusionflames at three different Reynolds numbers. Properties such as vorticityand strain rate distributions of the decomposed fields are analyzed inorder to assess the physical behavior. The turbulence filter can userelatively less data than the POD method while still providingsignificant insight about the flow field. The energy activation ratesshow the first modes (mean flow) account for 85% of the total energy.Reconstruction of the POD modes reveals that the combination of modesyields a complex fluctuating behavior. The averaged Reynolds stress ofthe mean flow removed parts shows interesting correlation with the meanflow vorticity and strain rate distributions. Selected turbulentproperties are calculated and discussed.     

Uncovering large-scale coherent structures in natural and forced turbulent wakes by combining PIV,POD, and FTLE

Planar velocity data of the unsteady separated flow in the turbulent wake of a circular cylinder obtained by particle image velocimetry (PIV) are analyzed in order to visualize the large-scale coherent structures associated with alternating vortex shedding at a Reynolds number of 2,150. Two different cases are examined: unforced vortex shedding in the natural wake and vortex lock-on incited by forced perturbations superimposed in the inflow velocity. Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is employed to reconstruct the low-order wake dynamics from randomly sampled snapshots of the velocity field. The reconstructed flow is subsequently used to determine the evolution of the finite-time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE) fields which identify the Lagrangian coherent structures. The results demonstrate that the combination of methods employed offers a powerful visualization tool to uncover large-scale coherent structures and to exemplify vortex dynamics in natural and forced bluff-body wakes.     

Experimental study and large eddy simulation for the turbulent flow around four cylinders in an in-line square configuration

The turbulent flows around four cylinders in an in-line square configuration with different spacing ratios of 1.5, 2.5, 3.5 and 5.0 have been investigated experimentally at subcritical Reynolds numbers from 11,000 to 20,000. The mean and fluctuating velocity distributions were obtained using the laser Doppler anemometry (LDA) measurement. The digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV) was employed to characterize the full field vorticity and velocity distributions as well as other turbulent quantities. The experimental study indicated that several distinct flow patterns exist depending on the spacing ratio and subcritical Reynolds number for turbulent flow. The three-dimensional numerical simulations were also carried out using the large eddy simulation (LES) at Reynolds number of 15,000 with the spacing ratio of 1.5 and 3.5. The results show that the LES numerical predictions are in good agreement with the experimental measurements. Therefore, the three-dimensional vortex structures and the full field instantaneous and mean quantities of the flow field such as velocity field, vorticity field, etc., which are very difficult to obtain experimentally, can be extracted from the simulation results for the deepening of our understanding on the complex flow phenomena around four cylinders in in-line configuration.     

Proper orthogonal decomposition analysis of coherent motions in a turbulent annular jet

A three-dimensional incompressible annular jet is simulated by the large eddy simulation(LES) method at a Reynolds number Re = 8 500. The time-averaged velocity field shows an asymmetric wake behind the central bluff-body although the flow geometry is symmetric. The proper orthogonal decomposition(POD) analysis of the velocity fluctuation vectors is conducted to study the flow dynamics of the wake flow.The distribution of turbulent kinetic energy across the three-dimensional POD modes shows that the first four eigenmodes each capture more than 1% of the turbulent kinetic energy, and hence their impact on the wake dynamics is studied. The results demonstrate that the asymmetric mean flow in the near-field of the annular jet is related to the first two POD modes which correspond to a radial shift of the stagnation point. The modes 3 and 4 involve the stretching or squeezing effects of the recirculation region in the radial direction. In addition, the spatial structure of these four POD eigenmodes also shows the counter-rotating vortices in the streamwise direction downstream of the flow reversal region.     

An investigation of forced structures in turbulent jet flows

In many cases, turbulence is superimposed on an unsteady organized motion of a mean flow. In the past, these turbulent flows have been studied by time or ensemble averaging methods and some decomposition techniques such as proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). In this study, a new decomposition technique called the turbulence filter will be used to decompose the forced turbulent jet flows. By using the turbulence filtering technique, the fluctuating (turbulent) part and the more organized (forced) part of the velocity field are analyzed. Within this context several experiments on organized turbulent jet flow have been carried out. In the experiments, variable frequency and amplitude oscillation are imposed on a 1D jet. An elliptical plate was used in order to obtain sinusoidal forcing. The axial distance, Reynolds number and the forcing frequency of the signal were varied. The multiple hot wires (six probes) were used to investigate the evolution of the signal along the radial distance. The obtained results of the turbulence filter are compared with those of phase-averaging and POD techniques. The eigenmodes of the data are also evaluated by using the POD method. Received: 31 July 1998/Accepted: 19 January 2000     

Phase-resolved characterization of vortex shedding in the near wake of a square-section cylinder at incidence

The vortex formation and shedding process in the near wake region of a 2D square-section cylinder at incidence has been investigated by means of particle image velocimetry (PIV). Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is used to characterize the coherent large-scale flow unsteadiness that is associated with the wake vortex shedding process. A particular application of the POD analysis is to extract the vortex-shedding phase of individual velocity fields, which were acquired at asynchronous low rate with respect to the vortex shedding cycle. The phase of an individual flow field is determined from its projection on the first pair of POD modes, allowing phase averaging of the measurement data to be performed. In addition, a low-order representation of the flow, constructed from the mean and the first pair of POD modes, is found to be practically equivalent to the phase-averaged results. It is shown that this low-order representation corresponds to the basic Fourier component of the flow field ensemble with respect to the reconstructed phase. The phase-averaged flow representations reveal the dominant flow features of the vortex-shedding process and the effect of the angle of incidence upon it.     

Velocity fluctuations in laminar fluid flow

Fluctuating hydrodynamics, originally developed for fluctuations in fluids in equilibrium, can be extended to deal also with thermally excited hydrodynamic fluctuations in non-equilibrium states. After first reviewing some results earlier obtained for temperature fluctuations in fluids subjected to an externally imposed temperature gradient, we use in this paper fluctuating hydrodynamics to determine the enhancement of velocity fluctuations in laminar fluid flow. Adopting the case of planar Couette flow as a representative example, we show how the fluctuations of the wall-normal component of the velocity and of the wall-normal component of the vorticity can be obtained as solutions of a stochastic Orr–Sommerfeld equation and a stochastic Squire equation, respectively. By solving these fluctuating hydrodynamic equations we obtain quantitative estimates of the flow-induced non-equilibrium enhancements of the velocity and vorticity fluctuations as a function of the Reynolds number and of the wave number of the fluctuations.     

Using Vorticity as an Indicator for the Generation of Optimal Coarse Grid Distribution

An improved vorticity-based gridding technique is presented and applied to create optimal non-uniform Cartesian coarse grid for numerical simulation of two-phase flow. The optimal coarse grid distribution (OCGD) is obtained in a manner to capture variations in both permeability and fluid velocity of the fine grid using a single physical quantity called “vorticity”. Only single-phase flow simulation on the fine grid is required to extract the vorticity. Based on the fine-scale vorticity information, several coarse grid models are generated for a given fine grid model. Then the vorticity map preservation error is used to predict how well each coarse grid model reproduces the fine-scale simulation results. The coarse grid model which best preserves the fine-scale vorticity, i.e. has the minimum vorticity map preservation error is recognized as an OCGD. The performance of vorticity-based optimal coarse grid is evaluated for two highly heterogeneous 2D formations. It is also shown that two-phase flow parameters such as mobility ratio have only minor impact on the performance of the predicted OCGD.     

Influence of Co-flow on Flickering Diffusion Flame

The influence of air co-flow on flickering methane diffusion flame was studied experimentally using the image processing technique and the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) analysis. The flickering of the flame is characterized by the mean height, the oscillation amplitude and the Strouhal number, which are measured by the digital image analysis of the diffusion flame. The experiments are carried out for various combinations of burner diameters, fuel velocities and co-flow velocities. With increasing the velocity ratio of the co-flow to the fuel flow, the oscillation amplitude is decreased and the Strouhal number is increased slightly in proportional to the inverse Froude number, while the frequency jump occurs in the low co-flow velocity ratio. These results are commonly observed in all the burners of different diameters, while the critical co-flow velocity ratio to suppress the flickering is found to be increased with increasing the burner diameters due to the influence of Froude number. The POD analysis of the flickering flame shows that the flickering energy is dominant in the first two POD modes and they are axisymmetric except for the zero co-flow velocity case and fully suppressed case. The correlation of POD coefficients in the first two fluctuating POD modes suggests the suppression of large-scale structure of flickering due to the influence of co-flow.     

Multi-time-delay LSE-POD complementary approach applied to unsteady high-Reynolds-number near wake flow

This investigation compared the application and accuracy of single- and multi-time-delay linear stochastic estimation-proper orthogonal decomposition (LSE-POD) methods in the temporal domain. These methods were considered for low-dimensional estimations of the dynamics of the energy-containing structures in a high Reynolds number flow. The near wake dynamics of a bluff body were used to demonstrate the robustness and accuracy of the investigated LSE-POD methods. Statistically independent two-dimensional particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements were used to determine spatial POD modes, and time-resolved surface pressure measurements were used to determine LSE coefficients required for estimating the time-varying POD coefficients. A low-order, time-resolved reconstruction of the wake dynamics was accomplished using these estimated time-varying POD coefficients. The paper also provides details concerning the accuracy of the estimation using multi-time-delay LSE-POD. The results demonstrate that the multi-time LSE-POD technique is successful in capturing and reconstructing the important near wake dynamics. It is also shown that optimizing the time delays used for the estimations increases the accuracy of the reconstruction. As a result of its capabilities, the multi-time-delay implementation of the LSE-POD approach offers an alternate method for low-dimensional modeling that is attractive for real-time flow estimation.     

Large-eddy Simulation of Motored Flow in a Two-valve Piston Engine: POD Analysis and Cycle-to-cycle Variations

Large-eddy simulation (LES) has been performed for a single-cylinder, two-valve, four-stroke-cycle piston engine through 70 consecutive motored cycles. Initial comparisons of ensemble-averaged velocity fields have been made between LES and experiment, and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) has been used to analyze the complex in-cylinder turbulent flows. Convergence of POD modes has been quantified, several POD variants have been explored, and sensitivity of results to analyzing different subsets of engine cycles has been studied. In general, it has been found that conclusions that were drawn earlier from POD analysis of a simplified non-compressing piston-cylinder assembly with a fixed valve carry over to the much more complex flow in this motored four-stroke-cycle engine. For the cases that have been examined, the first POD mode essentially corresponds to the ensemble-averaged mean velocity. The number of engine cycles required to extract converged POD modes increases with mode number, and varies with phase (piston position). There is little change in the lower-order phase-invariant POD modes when as few as 24 phases per cycle (30° between samples) are used, and complex 3-D time-dependent in-cylinder velocity fields through full engine cycles can be reconstructed using a relatively small number of POD modes. Quantification of cycle-to-cycle variations and insight into in-cylinder flow dynamics can be extracted through analysis of phase-invariant POD modes and coefficients.