Augmenting the immersed boundary method with Radial Basis Functions (RBFs) for the modeling of platelets in hemodynamic flows

We present a new computational method by extending the immersed boundary (IB) method with a geometric model based on parametric radial basis function (RBF) interpolation of the Lagrangian structures. Our specific motivation is the modeling of platelets in hemodynamic flows, although we anticipate that our method will be useful in other applications involving surface elasticity. The efficacy of our new RBF‐IB method is shown through a series of numerical experiments. Specifically, we test the convergence of our method and compare our method with the traditional IB method in terms of computational cost, maximum stable time‐step size, and volume loss. We conclude that the RBF‐IB method has advantages over the traditional IB method and is well‐suited for modeling of platelets in hemodynamic flows. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessment of regularized delta functions and feedback forcing schemes for an immersed boundary method

We present an improved immersed boundary method for simulating incompressible viscous flow around an arbitrarily moving body on a fixed computational grid. To achieve a large Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy number and to transfer quantities between Eulerian and Lagrangian domains effectively, we combined the feedback forcing scheme of the virtual boundary method with Peskin's regularized delta function approach. Stability analysis of the proposed method was carried out for various types of regularized delta functions. The stability regime of the 4‐point regularized delta function was much wider than that of the 2‐point delta function. An optimum regime of the feedback forcing is suggested on the basis of the analysis of stability limits and feedback forcing gains. The proposed method was implemented in a finite‐difference and fractional‐step context. The proposed method was tested on several flow problems, including the flow past a stationary cylinder, inline oscillation of a cylinder in a quiescent fluid, and transverse oscillation of a circular cylinder in a free‐stream. The findings were in excellent agreement with previous numerical and experimental results. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Cartesian grid technique based on one‐dimensional integrated radial basis function networks for natural convection in concentric annuli

This paper reports a radial basis function (RBF)‐based Cartesian grid technique for the simulation of two‐dimensional buoyancy‐driven flow in concentric annuli. The continuity and momentum equations are represented in the equivalent stream function formulation that reduces the number of equations from three to one, but involves higher‐order derivatives. The present technique uses a Cartesian grid to discretize the problem domain. Along a grid line, one‐dimensional integrated RBF networks (1D‐IRBFNs) are employed to represent the field variables. The capability of 1D‐IRBFNs to handle unstructured points with accuracy is exploited to describe non‐rectangular boundaries in a Cartesian grid, while the method's ability to avoid the reduction of convergence rate caused by differentiation is instrumental in improving the quality of the approximation of higher‐order derivatives. The method is applied to simulate thermally driven flows in annuli between two circular cylinders and between an outer square cylinder and an inner circular cylinder. High Rayleigh number solutions are achieved and they are in good agreement with previously published numerical data. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Non‐intrusive reduced‐order modelling of the Navier–Stokes equations based on RBF interpolation

We present a new non‐intrusive model reduction method for the Navier–Stokes equations. The method replaces the traditional approach of projecting the equations onto the reduced space with a radial basis function (RBF) multi‐dimensional interpolation. The main point of this method is to construct a number of multi‐dimensional interpolation functions using the RBF scatter multi‐dimensional interpolation method. The interpolation functions are used to calculate POD coefficients at each time step from POD coefficients at earlier time steps. The advantage of this method is that it does not require modifications to the source code (which would otherwise be very cumbersome), as it is independent of the governing equations of the system. Another advantage of this method is that it avoids the stability problem of POD/Galerkin. The novelty of this work lies in the application of RBF interpolation and POD to construct the reduced‐order model for the Navier–Stokes equations. Another novelty is the verification and validation of numerical examples (a lock exchange problem and a flow past a cylinder problem) using unstructured adaptive finite element ocean model. The results obtained show that CPU times are reduced by several orders of magnitude whilst the accuracy is maintained in comparison with the corresponding high‐fidelity models. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CFD‐based optimization of aerofoils using radial basis functions for domain element parameterization and mesh deformation

A novel domain element shape parameterization method is presented for computational fluid dynamics‐based shape optimization. The method is to achieve two aims: (1) provide a generic ‘wrap‐around’ optimization tool that is independent of both flow solver and grid generation package and (2) provide a method that allows high‐fidelity aerodynamic optimization of two‐ and three‐dimensional bodies with a low number of design variables. The parameterization technique uses radial basis functions to transfer domain element movements into deformations of the design surface and corresponding aerodynamic mesh, thus allowing total independence from the grid generation package (structured or unstructured). Independence from the flow solver (either inviscid, viscous, aeroelastic) is achieved by obtaining sensitivity information for an advanced gradient‐based optimizer (feasible sequential quadratic programming) by finite‐differences. Results are presented for two‐dimensional aerofoil inverse design and drag optimization problems. Inverse design results demonstrate that a large proportion of the design space is feasible with a relatively low number of design variables using the domain element parameterization. Heavily constrained (in lift, volume, and moment) two‐dimensional aerofoil drag optimization has shown that significant improvements over existing designs can be achieved using this method, through the use of various objective functions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Accuracy and stability of a set of free‐surface time‐domain boundary element models based on B‐splines

An analysis is given for the accuracy and stability of some perturbation‐based time‐domain boundary element models (BEMs) with B‐spline basis functions, solving hydrodynamic free‐surface problems, including forward speed effects. The spatial convergence rate is found as a function of the order of the B‐spline basis. It is shown that for all the models examined the mixed implicit–explicit Euler time integration scheme is correct to second order. Stability diagrams are found for models based on B‐splines of orders third through to sixth for two different time integration schemes. The stability analysis can be regarded as an extension of the analysis by Vada and Nakos [Vada T, Nakos DE. Time marching schemes for ship motion simulations. In Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Water Waves and Floating Bodies, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, 1993; 155–158] to include B‐splines of orders higher than three (piecewise quadratic polynomials) and to include finite water depth and a current at an oblique angle to the model grid. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical study of radial basis function interpolation for data transfer across discontinuous mesh interfaces

Allowing discontinuous or non‐matching mesh spacing across zonal interfaces within a computational domain offers many advantages, particularly in terms of easing the mesh generation process, reduction of required mesh densities, and relative motion between mesh zones. This paper presents a numerical study of a universal method for interpolating solution data across such interfaces. The method utilises radial basis functions (RBFs) for n‐dimensional volume interpolation, and treats the available solution data points simply as arbitrary clouds of points, eliminating all connectivity requirements and making it applicable to a wide range of computational problems. Properties of the developed meshless interface interpolation are investigated using analytic functions, and three issues are considered: the achievable order of spatial accuracy of the RBF interpolation alone and comparison with a variable order polynomial; the effect of a combined RBF and polynomial interpolation; and the ability of the method to recover frequency content. RBF interpolation alone is shown to achieve fourth‐order to sixth‐order spatial accuracy in one and two dimensions, and in three dimensions, using a small number of data points, third‐order and above is achievable even for a 3 : 1 discontinuous cell spacing ratio, that is a 27 : 1 volume ratio, across the interface. Hence, it is inefficient to include polynomial terms, since improving on the RBF spatial accuracy results in a significant increase in the system size and deterioration in conditioning. It is also shown that only five points per wavelength are required to capture both frequency and amplitude content of periodic solutions to less than 0.01% error.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The integrated singular basis function method for the stick-slip and the die-swell problems

We further develop a new singular finite element method, the integrated singular basis function method (ISBFM), for the solution of Newtonian flow problems with stress singularities. The ISBFM is based on the direct subtraction of the leading local solution terms from the governing equations and boundary conditions of the original problem, followed by a double integration by parts applied to those integrals with singular contributions. The method is applied to the stick-slip and the die-swell problems and improves the accuracy of the numerical results in both cases. In the case of the die-swell problem it considerably accelerates the convergence of the free surface profile with mesh refinement. The advantages and disadvantages of the ISBFM when compared to other singular methods are also discussed.     

A meshless method for numerical simulation of depth‐averaged turbulence flows using a k‐ϵ model

A three‐dimensional numerical model is developed to analyze free surface flows and water impact problems. The flow of an incompressible viscous fluid is solved using the unsteady Navier–Stokes equations. Pseudo‐time derivatives are introduced into the equations to improve computational efficiency. The interface between the two phases is tracked using a volume‐of‐fluid interface tracking algorithm developed in a generalized curvilinear coordinate system. The accuracy of the volume‐of‐fluid method is first evaluated by the multiple numerical benchmark tests, including two‐dimensional and three‐dimensional deformation cases on curvilinear grids. The performance and capability of the numerical model for water impact problems are demonstrated by simulations of water entries of the free‐falling hemisphere and cone, based on comparisons of water impact loadings, velocities, and penetrations of the body with experimental data. For further validation, computations of the dam‐break flows are presented, based on an analysis of the wave front propagation, water level, and the dynamic pressure impact of the waves on the downstream walls, on a specific container, and on a tall structure. Extensive comparisons between the obtained solutions, the experimental data, and the results of other numerical simulations in the literature are presented and show a good agreement. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Radial basis function neural network model for mean velocity and vorticity of capillary flow

The radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) simulation has been designed to simulate and predict the mean velocity of capillary flow in transition from laminar to turbulent flow and the root‐mean‐square vorticity as a function of wall‐normal position at different values of Reynolds number. The system was trained on the available data of the two cases. Therefore, we designed the system to work in automatic way for finding the best network that has the ability to have the best test and prediction. The proposed system shows an excellent agreement with that of an experimental data in these cases. The technique has been also designed to simulate the other distributions not presented in the training set and predicted them with effective matching. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Local moving least square‐one‐dimensional integrated radial basis function networks technique for incompressible viscous flows

This paper presents a local moving least square‐one‐dimensional integrated radial basis function networks method for solving incompressible viscous flow problems using stream function‐vorticity formulation. In this method, the partition of unity method is employed as a framework to incorporate the moving least square and one‐dimensional integrated radial basis function networks techniques. The major advantages of the proposed method include the following: (i) a banded sparse system matrix which helps reduce the computational cost; (ii) the Kronecker‐ δ property of the constructed shape function which helps impose the essential boundary condition in an exact manner; and (iii) high accuracy and fast convergence rate owing to the use of integration instead of conventional differentiation to construct the local radial basis function approximations. Several examples including two‐dimensional (2D) Poisson problems, lid‐driven cavity flow and flow past a circular cylinder are considered, and the present results are compared with the exact solutions and numerical results from other methods in the literature to demonstrate the attractiveness of the proposed method. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于逆复合二次径向基函数的对称复合材料层合板自由振动分析

利用逆复合二次径向基函数无网格配点法对Reddy的高阶剪切变形理论进行离散,预测了对称复合材料层合板的自由振动特性.将不同材料参数、几何尺寸和边界条件的层合板固有频率计算结果与相关文献中的结果进行对比,结果表明:逆复合二次径向基函数在对称复合材料层合板自由振动分析方面具有收敛性好及精度高等一系列优点.     

A numerical method based on boundary integral equations and radial basis functions for plane anisotropic thermoelastostatic equations with general variable coefficients

A boundary integral method with radial basis function approximation is proposed for numerically solving an important class of boundary value problems governed by a system of thermoelastostatic equations with variable coefficients. The equations describe the thermoelastic behaviors of nonhomogeneous anisotropic materials with properties that vary smoothly from point to point in space. No restriction is imposed on the spatial variations of the thermoelastic coefficients as long as all the requirements of the laws of physics are satisfied. To check the validity and accuracy of the proposed numerical method, some specific test problems with known solutions are solved.     

Theory and applications in stability of free‐surface time‐domain boundary element models

A method is presented for examining the stability of a free‐surface time‐domain boundary element model based on B‐splines. Effects of a non‐uniform discretization occurring in practical applications are included. It is demonstrated that instabilities may occur, even in situations where earlier stability analyses predicted the scheme to be stable. These instabilities are due to non‐uniformities in the spatial discretization, which have until now not been included in the stability analyses. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A finite element variational multiscale method for incompressible flows based on the construction of the projection basis functions

In this article, we present a finite element variational multiscale (VMS) method for incompressible flows based on the construction of projection basis functions and compare it with common VMS method, which is defined by a low‐order finite element space L_h on the same grid as X_h for the velocity deformation tensor and a stabilization parameter α. The best algorithmic feature of our method is to construct the projection basis functions at the element level with minimal additional cost to replace the global projection operator. Finally, we give some numerical simulations of the nonlinear flow problems to show good stability and accuracy properties of the method. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

2‐D transmitral flows simulation by means of the immersed boundary method on unstructured grids

Interaction between computational fluid dynamics and clinical researches recently allowed a deeper understanding of the physiology of complex phenomena involving cardio‐vascular mechanisms. The aim of this paper is to develop a simplified numerical model based on the Immersed Boundary Method and to perform numerical simulations in order to study the cardiac diastolic phase during which the left ventricle is filled with blood flowing from the atrium throughout the mitral valve. As one of the diagnostic problems to be faced by clinicians is the lack of a univocal definition of the diastolic performance from the velocity measurements obtained by Eco–Doppler techniques, numerical simulations are supposed to provide an insight both into the physics of the diastole and into the interpretation of experimental data. An innovative application of the Immersed Boundary Method on unstructured grids is presented, fulfilling accuracy requirements related to the development of a thin boundary layer along the moving immersed boundary. It appears that this coupling between unstructured meshes and the Immersed Boundary Method is a promising technique when a wide range of spatial scales is involved together with a moving boundary. Numerical simulations are performed in a range of physiological parameters and a qualitative comparison with experimental data is presented, in order to demonstrate that, despite the simplified model, the main physiological characteristics of the diastole are well represented. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unified one‐fluid formulation for incompressible flexible solids and multiphase flows: Application to hydrodynamics using the immersed structural potential method (ISPM)

In this paper, we present a two‐dimensional computational framework for the simulation of fluid‐structure interaction problems involving incompressible flexible solids and multiphase flows, further extending the application range of classical immersed computational approaches to the context of hydrodynamics. The proposed method aims to overcome shortcomings such as the restriction of having to deal with similar density ratios among different phases or the restriction to solve single‐phase flows. First, a variation of classical immersed techniques, pioneered with the immersed boundary method (IBM), is presented by rearranging the governing equations, which define the behaviour of the multiple physics involved. The formulation is compatible with the “one‐fluid” formulation for two‐phase flows and can deal with large density ratios with the help of an anisotropic Poisson solver. Second, immersed deformable structures and fluid phases are modelled in an identical manner except for the computation of the deviatoric stresses. The numerical technique followed in this paper builds upon the immersed structural potential method developed by the authors, by adding a level set–based method for the capturing of the fluid‐fluid interfaces and an interface Lagrangian‐based meshless technique for the tracking of the fluid‐structure interface. The spatial discretisation is based on the standard marker‐and‐cell method used in conjunction with a fractional step approach for the pressure/velocity decoupling, a second‐order time integrator, and a fixed‐point iterative scheme. The paper presents a wide d range of two‐dimensional applications involving multiphase flows interacting with immersed deformable solids, including benchmarking against both experimental and alternative numerical schemes.     

A new modification of the immersed‐boundary method for simulating flows with complex moving boundaries

In this paper, a new immersed‐boundary method for simulating flows over complex immersed, moving boundaries is presented. The flow is computed on a fixed Cartesian mesh and the solid boundaries are allowed to move freely through the mesh. The present method is based on a finite‐difference approach on a staggered mesh together with a fractional‐step method. It must be noted that the immersed boundary is generally not coincident with the position of the solution variables on the grid, therefore, an appropriate strategy is needed to construct a relationship between the curved boundary and the grid points nearby. Furthermore, a momentum forcing is added on the body boundaries and also inside the body to satisfy the no‐slip boundary condition. The immersed boundary is represented by a series of interfacial markers, and the markers are also used as Lagrangian forcing points. A linear interpolation is then used to scale the Lagrangian forcing from the interfacial markers to the corresponding grid points nearby. This treatment of the immersed‐boundary is used to simulate several problems, which have been validated with previous experimental results in the open literature, verifying the accuracy of the present method. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wall modeling via function enrichment within a high‐order DG method for RANS simulations of incompressible flow

We present a novel approach to wall modeling for the Reynolds‐averaged Navier‐Stokes equations within the discontinuous Galerkin method. Wall functions are not used to prescribe boundary conditions as usual, but they are built into the function space of the numerical method as a local enrichment, in addition to the standard polynomial component. The Galerkin method then automatically finds the optimal solution among all shape functions available. This idea is fully consistent and gives the wall model vast flexibility in separated boundary layers or high adverse pressure gradients. The wall model is implemented in a high‐order discontinuous Galerkin solver for incompressible flow complemented by the Spalart‐Allmaras closure model. As benchmark examples, we present turbulent channel flow starting from Re_τ=180 and up to Re_τ=100000 as well as flow past periodic hills at Reynolds numbers based on the hill height of Re_H=10595 and Re_H=19000.     

Meshfree weak–strong (MWS) form method and its application to incompressible flow problems

A meshfree weak–strong (MWS) form method has been proposed by the authors' group for linear solid mechanics problems based on a combined weak and strong form of governing equations. This paper formulates the MWS method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations that is non‐linear in nature. In this method, the meshfree collocation method based on strong form equations is applied to the interior nodes and the nodes on the essential boundaries; the local Petrov–Galerkin weak form is applied only to the nodes on the natural boundaries of the problem domain. The MWS method is then applied to simulate the steady problem of natural convection in an enclosed domain and the unsteady problem of viscous flow around a circular cylinder using both regular and irregular nodal distributions. The simulation results are validated by comparing with those of other numerical methods as well as experimental data. It is demonstrated that the MWS method has very good efficiency and accuracy for fluid flow problems. It works perfectly well for irregular nodes using only local quadrature cells for nodes on the natural boundary, which can be generated without any difficulty. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.