Absorbing boundary conditions for the Euler and Navier–Stokes equations with the spectral difference method

Two absorbing boundary conditions, the absorbing sponge zone and the perfectly matched layer, are developed and implemented for the spectral difference method discretizing the Euler and Navier–Stokes equations on unstructured grids. The performance of both boundary conditions is evaluated and compared with the characteristic boundary condition for a variety of benchmark problems including vortex and acoustic wave propagations. The applications of the perfectly matched layer technique in the numerical simulations of unsteady problems with complex geometries are also presented to demonstrate its capability.     

A low numerical dissipation immersed interface method for the compressible Navier–Stokes equations

A numerical method to solve the compressible Navier–Stokes equations around objects of arbitrary shape using Cartesian grids is described. The approach considered here uses an embedded geometry representation of the objects and approximate the governing equations with a low numerical dissipation centered finite-difference discretization. The method is suitable for compressible flows without shocks and can be classified as an immersed interface method. The objects are sharply captured by the Cartesian mesh by appropriately adapting the discretization stencils around the irregular grid nodes, located around the boundary. In contrast with available methods, no jump conditions are used or explicitly derived from the boundary conditions, although a number of elements are adopted from previous immersed interface approaches. A new element in the present approach is the use of the summation-by-parts formalism to develop stable non-stiff first-order derivative approximations at the irregular grid points. Second-order derivative approximations, as those appearing in the transport terms, can be stiff when irregular grid points are located too close to the boundary. This is addressed using a semi-implicit time integration method. Moreover, it is shown that the resulting implicit equations can be solved explicitly in the case of constant transport properties. Convergence studies are performed for a rotating cylinder and vortex shedding behind objects of varying shapes at different Mach and Reynolds numbers.     

A well-conditioned augmented system for solving Navier–Stokes equations in irregular domains

An augmented method based on a Cartesian grid is proposed for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in irregular domains. The irregular domain is embedded into a rectangular one so that a fast Poisson solver can be utilized in the projection method. Unlike several methods suggested in the literature that set the force strengths as unknowns, which often results in an ill-conditioned linear system, we set the jump in the normal derivative of the velocity as the augmented variable. The new approach improves the condition number of the system for the augmented variable significantly. Using the immersed interface method, we are able to achieve second order accuracy for the velocity. Numerical results and comparisons to benchmark tests are given to validate the new method. A lid-driven cavity flow with multiple obstacles and different geometries are also presented.     

Absorbing boundary conditions for nonlinear Euler and Navier–Stokes equations based on the perfectly matched layer technique

Absorbing boundary conditions for the nonlinear Euler and Navier–Stokes equations in three space dimensions are presented based on the perfectly matched layer (PML) technique. The derivation of equations follows a three-step method recently developed for the PML of linearized Euler equations. To increase the efficiency of the PML, a pseudo mean flow is introduced in the formulation of absorption equations. The proposed PML equations will absorb exponentially the difference between the nonlinear fluctuation and the prescribed pseudo mean flow. With the nonlinearity in flux vectors, the proposed nonlinear absorbing equations are not formally perfectly matched to the governing equations as their linear counter-parts are. However, numerical examples show satisfactory results. Furthermore, the nonlinear PML reduces automatically to the linear PML upon linearization about the pseudo mean flow. The validity and efficiency of proposed equations as absorbing boundary conditions for nonlinear Euler and Navier–Stokes equations are demonstrated by numerical examples.     

Spectrally-accurate algorithm for moving boundary problems for the Navier–Stokes equations

A spectral algorithm based on the immersed boundary conditions (IBC) concept is developed for simulations of viscous flows with moving boundaries. The algorithm uses a fixed computational domain with flow domain immersed inside the computational domain. Boundary conditions along the edges of the time-dependent flow domain enter the algorithm in the form of internal constraints. Spectral spatial discretization uses Fourier expansions in the stream-wise direction and Chebyshev expansions in the normal-to-the-wall direction. Up to fourth-order implicit temporal discretization methods have been implemented. It has been demonstrated that the algorithm delivers the theoretically predicted accuracy in both time and space. Performances of various linear solvers employed in the solution process have been evaluated and a new class of solver that takes advantage of the structure of the coefficient matrix has been proposed. The new solver results in a significant acceleration of computations as well as in a substantial reduction in memory requirements.     

A stable and conservative high order multi-block method for the compressible Navier–Stokes equations

A stable and conservative high order multi-block method for the time-dependent compressible Navier–Stokes equations has been developed. Stability and conservation are proved using summation-by-parts operators, weak interface conditions and the energy method. This development makes it possible to exploit the efficiency of the high order finite difference method for non-trivial geometries. The computational results corroborate the theoretical analysis.     

A Fourier spectral method for the Navier–Stokes equations with volume penalization for moving solid obstacles

An efficient numerical scheme to compute flows past rigid solid bodies moving through viscous incompressible fluid is presented. Solid obstacles of arbitrary shape are taken into account using the volume penalization method to impose no-slip boundary condition. The 2D Navier–Stokes equations, written in the vorticity-streamfunction formulation, are discretized using a Fourier pseudo-spectral scheme. Four different time discretization schemes of the penalization term are proposed and compared. The originality of the present work lies in the implementation of time-dependent penalization, which makes the above method capable of solving problems where the obstacle follows an arbitrary motion. Fluid–solid coupling for freely falling bodies is also implemented. The numerical method is validated for different test cases: the flow past a cylinder, Couette flow between rotating cylinders, sedimentation of a cylinder and a falling leaf with elliptical shape.     

An efficient method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations on irregular domains with no-slip boundary conditions,high order up to the boundary

Common efficient schemes for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations, such as projection or fractional step methods, have limited temporal accuracy as a result of matrix splitting errors, or introduce errors near the domain boundaries (which destroy uniform convergence to the solution). In this paper we recast the incompressible (constant density) Navier–Stokes equations (with the velocity prescribed at the boundary) as an equivalent system, for the primary variables velocity and pressure. equation for the pressure. The key difference from the usual approaches occurs at the boundaries, where we use boundary conditions that unequivocally allow the pressure to be recovered from knowledge of the velocity at any fixed time. This avoids the common difficulty of an, apparently, over-determined Poisson problem. Since in this alternative formulation the pressure can be accurately and efficiently recovered from the velocity, the recast equations are ideal for numerical marching methods. The new system can be discretized using a variety of methods, including semi-implicit treatments of viscosity, and in principle to any desired order of accuracy. In this work we illustrate the approach with a 2-D second order finite difference scheme on a Cartesian grid, and devise an algorithm to solve the equations on domains with curved (non-conforming) boundaries, including a case with a non-trivial topology (a circular obstruction inside the domain). This algorithm achieves second order accuracy in the L^∞ norm, for both the velocity and the pressure. The scheme has a natural extension to 3-D.     

Stable Robin solid wall boundary conditions for the Navier–Stokes equations

In this paper we prove stability of Robin solid wall boundary conditions for the compressible Navier–Stokes equations. Applications include the no-slip boundary conditions with prescribed temperature or temperature gradient and the first order slip-flow boundary conditions. The formulation is uniform and the transitions between different boundary conditions are done by a change of parameters. We give different sharp energy estimates depending on the choice of parameters.     

A differentially interpolated direct forcing immersed boundary method for predicting incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in time-varying complex geometries

A dispersion-relation-preserving dual-compact scheme developed in Cartesian grids is applied together with the immersed boundary method to solve the flow equations in irregular and time-varying domains. The artificial momentum forcing term applied at certain points in cells containing fluid and solid allows an imposition of velocity condition to account for the motion of solid body. We develop in this study a differential-based interpolation scheme which can be easily extended to three-dimensional simulation. The results simulated from the proposed immersed boundary method agree well with other numerical and experimental results for the chosen benchmark problems. The accuracy and fidelity of the IB flow solver developed to predict flows with irregular boundaries are therefore demonstrated.     

A multi-block ADI finite-volume method for incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in complex geometries

An efficient second-order accurate finite-volume method is developed for a solution of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations on complex multi-block structured curvilinear grids. Unlike in the finite-volume or finite-difference-based alternating-direction-implicit (ADI) methods, where factorization of the coordinate transformed governing equations is performed along generalized coordinate directions, in the proposed method, the discretized Cartesian form Navier–Stokes equations are factored along curvilinear grid lines. The new ADI finite-volume method is also extended for simulations on multi-block structured curvilinear grids with which complex geometries can be efficiently resolved. The numerical method is first developed for an unsteady convection–diffusion equation, then is extended for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The order of accuracy and stability characteristics of the present method are analyzed in simulations of an unsteady convection–diffusion problem, decaying vortices, flow in a lid-driven cavity, flow over a circular cylinder, and turbulent flow through a planar channel. Numerical solutions predicted by the proposed ADI finite-volume method are found to be in good agreement with experimental and other numerical data, while the solutions are obtained at much lower computational cost than those required by other iterative methods without factorization. For a simulation on a grid with O(10⁵) cells, the computational time required by the present ADI-based method for a solution of momentum equations is found to be less than 20% of that required by a method employing a biconjugate-gradient-stabilized scheme.     

Weak and strong wall boundary procedures and convergence to steady-state of the Navier–Stokes equations

We study the influence of different implementations of no-slip solid wall boundary conditions on the convergence to steady-state of the Navier–Stokes equations. The various approaches are investigated using the energy method and an eigenvalue analysis. It is shown that the weak implementation is superior and enhances the convergence to steady-state for coarse meshes. It is also demonstrated that all the stable approaches produce the same convergence rate as the mesh size goes to zero. The numerical results obtained by using a fully nonlinear finite volume solver support the theoretical findings from the linear analysis.     

Artificial compressibility method revisited: Asymptotic numerical method for incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

The artificial compressibility method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations is revived as a high order accurate numerical method (fourth order in space and second order in time). Similar to the lattice Boltzmann method, the mesh spacing is linked to the Mach number. An accuracy higher than that of the lattice Boltzmann method is achieved by exploiting the asymptotic behavior of the solution of the artificial compressibility equations for small Mach numbers and the simple lattice structure. An easy method for accelerating the decay of acoustic waves, which deteriorate the quality of the numerical solution, and a simple cure for the checkerboard instability are proposed. The high performance of the scheme is demonstrated not only for the periodic boundary condition but also for the Dirichlet-type boundary condition.     

A reconstructed discontinuous Galerkin method for the compressible Navier–Stokes equations on arbitrary grids

A reconstruction-based discontinuous Galerkin (RDG) method is presented for the solution of the compressible Navier–Stokes equations on arbitrary grids. The RDG method, originally developed for the compressible Euler equations, is extended to discretize viscous and heat fluxes in the Navier–Stokes equations using a so-called inter-cell reconstruction, where a smooth solution is locally reconstructed using a least-squares method from the underlying discontinuous DG solution. Similar to the recovery-based DG (rDG) methods, this reconstructed DG method eliminates the introduction of ad hoc penalty or coupling terms commonly found in traditional DG methods. Unlike rDG methods, this RDG method does not need to judiciously choose a proper form of a recovered polynomial, thus is simple, flexible, and robust, and can be used on arbitrary grids. The developed RDG method is used to compute a variety of flow problems on arbitrary meshes to demonstrate its accuracy, efficiency, robustness, and versatility. The numerical results indicate that this RDG method is able to deliver the same accuracy as the well-known Bassi–Rebay II scheme, at a half of its computing costs for the discretization of the viscous fluxes in the Navier–Stokes equations, clearly demonstrating its superior performance over the existing DG methods for solving the compressible Navier–Stokes equations.     

A cell-centered adaptive projection method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in three dimensions

We present a method for computing incompressible viscous flows in three dimensions using block-structured local refinement in both space and time. This method uses a projection formulation based on a cell-centered approximate projection, combined with the systematic use of multilevel elliptic solvers to compute increments in the solution generated at boundaries between refinement levels due to refinement in time. We use an L₀-stable second-order semi-implicit scheme to evaluate the viscous terms. Results are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of this approach.     

Stabilization and scalable block preconditioning for the Navier–Stokes equations

This study compares several block-oriented preconditioners for the stabilized finite element discretization of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. This includes standard additive Schwarz domain decomposition methods, aggressive coarsening multigrid, and three preconditioners based on an approximate block LU factorization, specifically SIMPLEC, LSC, and PCD. Robustness is considered with a particular focus on the impact that different stabilization methods have on preconditioner performance. Additionally, parallel scaling studies are undertaken. The numerical results indicate that aggressive coarsening multigrid, LSC and PCD all have good algorithmic scalability. Coupling this with the fact that block methods can be applied to systems arising from stable mixed discretizations implies that these techniques are a promising direction for developing scalable methods for Navier–Stokes.     

A 6th order staggered compact finite difference method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes and scalar transport equations

In a previous paper we have developed a staggered compact finite difference method for the compressible Navier–Stokes equations. In this paper we will extend this method to the case of incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. In an incompressible flow conservation of mass is ensured by the well known pressure correction method  and . The advection and diffusion terms are discretized with 6th order spatial accuracy. The discrete Poisson equation, which has to be solved in the pressure correction step, has the same spatial accuracy as the advection and diffusion operators. The equations are integrated in time with a third order Adams–Bashforth method. Results are presented for a 1D advection–diffusion equation, a 2D lid driven cavity at a Reynolds number of 1000 and 10,000 and finally a 3D fully developed turbulent duct flow at a bulk Reynolds number of 5400. In all cases the methods show excellent agreement with analytical and other numerical and experimental work.     

A Relaxed Dimensional Factorization preconditioner for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

In this paper we introduce a Relaxed Dimensional Factorization (RDF) preconditioner for saddle point problems. Properties of the preconditioned matrix are analyzed and compared with those of the closely related Dimensional Splitting (DS) preconditioner recently introduced by Benzi and Guo [7]. Numerical results for a variety of finite element discretizations of both steady and unsteady incompressible flow problems indicate very good behavior of the RDF preconditioner with respect to both mesh size and viscosity.     

Implicit LU-SGS algorithm for high-order methods on unstructured grid with p-multigrid strategy for solving the steady Navier–Stokes equations

The fluid dynamic equations are discretized by a high-order spectral volume (SV) method on unstructured tetrahedral grids. We solve the steady state equations by advancing in time using a backward Euler (BE) scheme. To avoid the inversion of a large matrix we approximate BE by an implicit lower–upper symmetric Gauss–Seidel (LU-SGS) algorithm. The implicit method addresses the stiffness in the discrete Navier–Stokes equations associated with stretched meshes. The LU-SGS algorithm is then used as a smoother for a p-multigrid approach. A Von Neumann stability analysis is applied to the two-dimensional linear advection equation to determine its damping properties. The implicit LU-SGS scheme is used to solve the two-dimensional (2D) compressible laminar Navier–Stokes equations. We compute the solution of a laminar external flow over a cylinder and around an airfoil at low Mach number. We compare the convergence rates with explicit Runge–Kutta (E-RK) schemes employed as a smoother. The effects of the cell aspect ratio and the low Mach number on the convergence are investigated. With the p-multigrid method and the implicit smoother the computational time can be reduced by a factor of up to 5–10 compared with a well tuned E-RK scheme.     

The Elastoplast Discontinuous Galerkin (EDG) method for the Navier–Stokes equations

The present work details the Elastoplast (this name is a translation from the French “sparadrap”, a concept first applied by Yves Morchoisne for Spectral methods [1]) Discontinuous Galerkin (EDG) method to solve the compressible Navier–Stokes equations. This method was first presented in 2009 at the ICOSAHOM congress with some Cartesian grid applications. We focus here on unstructured grid applications for which the EDG method seems very attractive. As in the Recovery method presented by van Leer and Nomura in 2005 for diffusion, jumps across element boundaries are locally eliminated by recovering the solution on an overlapping cell. In the case of Recovery, this cell is the union of the two neighboring cells and the Galerkin basis is twice as large as the basis used for one element. In our proposed method the solution is rebuilt through an L² projection of the discontinuous interface solution on a small rectangular overlapping interface element, named Elastoplast, with an orthogonal basis of the same order as the one in the neighboring cells. Comparisons on 1D and 2D scalar diffusion problems in terms of accuracy and stability with other viscous DG schemes are first given. Then, 2D results on acoustic problems, vortex problems and boundary layer problems both on Cartesian or unstructured triangular grids illustrate stability, precision and versatility of this method.