On pressure boundary conditions for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations

The pressure is a somewhat mysterious quantity in incompressible flows. It is not a thermodynamic variable as there is no ‘equation of state’ for an incompressible fluid. It is in one sense a mathematical artefact—a Lagrange multiplier that constrains the velocity field to remain divergence-free; i.e., incompressible—yet its gradient is a relevant physical quantity: a force per unit volume. It propagates at infinite speed in order to keep the flow always and everywhere incompressible; i.e., it is always in equilibrium with a time-varying divergence-free velocity field. It is also often difficult and/or expensive to compute. While the pressure is perfectly well-defined (at least up to an arbitrary additive constant) by the governing equations describing the conservation of mass and momentum, it is (ironically) less so when more directly expressed in terms of a Poisson equation that is both derivable from the original conservation equations and used (or misused) to replace the mass conservation equation. This is because in this latter form it is also necessary to address directly the subject of pressure boundary conditions, whose proper specification is crucial (in many ways) and forms the basis of this work. Herein we show that the same principles of mass and momentum conservation, combined with a continuity argument, lead to the correct boundary conditions for the pressure Poisson equation: viz., a Neumann condition that is derived simply by applying the normal component of the momentum equation at the boundary. It usually follows, but is not so crucial, that the tangential momentum equation is also satisfied at the boundary.     

Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions for the pressure poisson equation of incompressible flow

In a recent paper Gresho and Sani showed that Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions for the pressure Poisson equation give the same solution. The purpose of this paper is to confirm this (for one case at least) by numerically solving the pressure equation with Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions for the inviscid stagnation point flow problem. The Dirichlet boundary condition is obtained by integrating the tangential component of the momentum equation along the boundary. The Neumann boundary condition is obtained by applying the normal component of the momentum equation at the boundary. In this work solutions for the Neumann problem exist only if a compatibility condition is satisfied. A consistent finite difference procedure which satisfies this condition on non-staggered grids is used for the solution of the pressure equation with Neumann conditions. Two test cases are computed. In the first case the velocity field is given from the analytical solution and the pressure is recovered from the solution of the associated Poisson equation. The computed results are identical for both Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. However, the Dirichlet problem converges faster than the Neumann case. In the second test case the velocity field is computed from the momentum equations, which are solved iteratively with the pressure Poisson equation. In this case the Neumann problem converges faster than the Dirichlet problem.     

On the implementation of symmetric and antisymmetric periodic boundary conditions for incompressible flow

In this paper we consider symmetric and antisymmetric periodic boundary conditions for flows governed by the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Classical periodic boundary conditions are studied as well as symmetric and antisymmetric periodic boundary conditions in which there is a pressure difference between inlet and outlet. The implementation of this type of boundary conditions in a finite element code using the penalty function formulation is treated and also the implementation in a finite volume code based on pressure correction. The methods are demonstrated by computation of a flow through a staggered tube bundle.     

A novel incompressible finite-difference lattice Boltzmann equation for particle-laden flow

In this paper, we propose a novel incompressible finite-difference lattice Boltzmann Equation (FDLBE). Because source terms that reflect the interaction between phases can be accurately described, the new model is suitable for simulating two-way coupling incompressible multiphase flow. The 2-D particle-laden flow over a backward-facing step is chosen as a test case to validate the present method. Favorable results are obtained and the present scheme is shown to have good prospects in practical applications. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (60073044), and the State Key Development Programme for Basic Research of China (G1999022207). The English text was polished by Guowei Yang and Yunming Chen.     

Segregated finite element algorithms for the numerical solution of large-scale incompressible flow problems

This paper presents results of an ongoing research program directed towards developing fast and efficient finite element solution algorithms for the simulation of large-scale flow problems. Two main steps were taken towards achieving this goal. The first step was to employ segregated solution schemes as opposed to the fully coupled solution approach traditionally used in many finite element solution algorithms. The second step was to replace the direct Gaussian elimination linear equation solvers used in the first step with iterative solvers of the conjugate gradient and conjugate residual type. The three segregated solution algorithms developed in step one are first presented and their integrity and relative performance demonstrated by way of a few examples. Next, the four types of iterative solvers (i.e. two options for solving the symmetric pressure type equations and two options for solving the non-symmetric advection–diffusion type equations resulting from the segregated algorithms) together with the two preconditioning strategies employed in our study are presented. Finally, using examples of practical relevance the paper documents the large gains which result in computational efficiency, over fully coupled solution algorithms, as each of the above two main steps are introduced. It is shown that these gains become increasingly more dramatic as the complexity and size of the problem is increased.     

Using a segregated finite element scheme to solve the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations

In this paper, a segregated finite element scheme for the solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations is proposed which is simpler in form than previously reported formulations. A pressure correction equation is derived from the momentum and continuity equations, and equal-order interpolation is used for both the velocity components and pressure. Algorithms such as this have been known to lead to checkerboard pressure oscillations; however, the pressure correction equation of this scheme should not produce these oscillations. The method is applied to several laminar flow situations, and details of the methods used to achieve converged solutions are given.     

Finite element solution of the streamfunction-vorticity equations for incompressible two-dimensional flows

The streamfunction-vorticity equations for incompressible two-dimensional flows are uncoupled and solved in sequence by the finite element method. The vorticity at no-slip boundaries is evaluated in the framework of the streamfunction equation. The resulting scheme achieves convergence, even for very high values of the Reynolds number, without the traditional need for upwinding. The stability and accuracy of the approach are demonstrated by the solution of two well-known benchmark problems: flow in a lid-driven cavity at Re ? 10,000 and flow over a backward-facing step at Re = 800.     

不可压缩二维流动Navier—Stokes方程的有限元解

对不可压缩流体沿二维后台阶流动的Ｎ－Ｓ方程的流函数－涡量式用有限元方法加以求解，固壁上的涡量用时间迭代法加以确定。分别计算Ｒｅ＝２００，４００，８００和１０００时流动区域的流函数和涡量值，并在Ｒｅ＝８００时与有关文献的结果相比较，基本吻合。且在此基础上讨论了出口条件对计算结果的影响。本文的方法对分析流经液压阀口等流动问题具有借鉴意义。     

Finite element method for shallow water equation including open boundary condition

A method to deal with an open boundary condition in the analysis of water surface waves, the tide, etc. by means of the finite element method is proposed in this paper. The present method has two important features relating to the treatment of the open boundary condition. The first feature is to consider the non-reflective virtual boundary condition which has been developed in the numerical wave analysis method. The incident wave conditions without spurious reflected waves can be imposed at the open boundary. The second feature is to identify the amplitude of the components of incident waves in terms of observed water elevations in the field of standing waves. This can be done as a parameter identification based on an optimization problem by applying the conjugate gradient method. The applicability of this method to wave propagation problems is verified by several numerical computations.     

The implementation of normal and/or tangential boundary conditions in finite element codes for incompressible fluid flow

Various techniques for implementing normal and/or tangential boundary conditions in finite element codes are reviewed. The principle of global conservation of mass is used to define a unique direction for the outward pointing normal vector at any node on an irregular boundary of a domain containing an incompressible fluid. This information permits the consistent and unambiguous application of essential or natural boundary conditions (or any combination thereof) on the domain boundary regardless of boundary shape or orientation with respect to the co-ordinate directions in both two and three dimensions. Several numerical examples are presented which demonstrate the effectiveness of the recommended technique.     

A pressure-smoothing scheme for incompressible flow problems

A pressure-smoothing scheme for Stokes and Navier–Stokes flows of Newtonian fluids and for Stokes flow of Maxwell fluids is described. The stress deviator obtained from the calculated velocity field is substituted into the governing equilibrium equation. The resulting equation is then solved to obtain a new, smoothed pressure by a least square finite element method.     

Iterative stabilization of the bilinear velocity–constant pressure element

Some finite element approximations of incompressible flows, such as those obtained with the bilinear velocity–constant pressure element (Q₁?P₀), are well known to be unstable in pressure while providing reasonable results for the velocity. We shall see that there exists a subspace of piecewise constant pressures that leads to a stable approximation. The main drawback associated with this subspace is the necessity of assembling groups of elements, the so-called ‘macro-elements’, which increases dramatically the bandwidth of the system. We study a variant of Uzawa's method which enables us to work in the desired subspace without increasing the bandwidth of the system. Numerical results show that this method is efficient and can be made to work at a low extra cost. The method can easily be generalized to other problems and is very attractive in three-dimensional cases.     

A hybrid vertex-centered finite volume/element method for viscous incompressible flows on non-staggered unstructured meshes

This paper proposes a hybrid vertex-centered finite volume/finite element method for solution of the two dimensional (2D) incompressible Navier-Stokes equations on unstructured grids.An incremental pressure fractional step method is adopted to handle the velocity-pressure coupling.The velocity and the pressure are collocated at the node of the vertex-centered control volume which is formed by joining the centroid of cells sharing the common vertex.For the temporal integration of the momentum equations,an implicit second-order scheme is utilized to enhance the computational stability and eliminate the time step limit due to the diffusion term.The momentum equations are discretized by the vertex-centered finite volume method (FVM) and the pressure Poisson equation is solved by the Galerkin finite element method (FEM).The momentum interpolation is used to damp out the spurious pressure wiggles.The test case with analytical solutions demonstrates second-order accuracy of the current hybrid scheme in time and space for both velocity and pressure.The classic test cases,the lid-driven cavity flow,the skew cavity flow and the backward-facing step flow,show that numerical results are in good agreement with the published benchmark solutions.     

Finite element technique to solve the elastic strain for Leonov fluid flow

The finite element method is used to find the elastic strain (and thus the stress) for given velocity fields of the Leonov model fluid. With a simple linearization technique and the Galerkin formulation, the quasi-linear coupled first-order hyperbolic differential equations together with a non-linear equality constraint are solved over the entire domain based on a weighted residual scheme. The proposed numerical scheme has yielded efficient and accurate convective integrations for both the planar channel and the diverging radial flows for the Leonov model fluid. Only the strain in the inflow plane is required to be prescribed as the boundary conditions. In application, it can be conveniently incorporated in an existing finite element algorithm to simulate the Leonov viscoelastic fluid flow with more complex geometry in which the velocity field is not known a priori and an iterative procedure is needed.     

Solution to the form of Poisson equation by the boundary element methods

In this paper, the domain integral of the form of Poisson equation is translated into complete boundary integral by the fundamental solution of higher-order Laplace operator, the dimensions of the problem can be contracted into one. The numerical examples for Stokes equations show that this method is efficient.     

The effect of the choice of the reference pressure location in numerical modelling of incompressible flow

The discontinuity of a finite-element pressure field that is sometimes present in the neighbourhood of the pressure-specification-point is shown to arise either from round-off, or from mistakes in modelling. The implications of this are considered. In particular it restricts grid refinement near the pressure-specification-point. The analysis can be extended to finite-difference calculations, and to other fields governed by equations similar to Poisson's equation.     

Effective downstream boundary conditions for incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

The aim of this paper is to give open boundary conditions for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. From a weak formulation in velocity–pressure variables, some natural boundary conditions involving the traction or pseudotraction and inertial terms are established. Numerical experiments on the flow behind a cylinder show the efficiency of these conditions, which convey properly the vortices downstream. Comparisons with other boundary conditions for the velocity and pressure are also performed.     

Locally mass-conserving Taylor–Hood elements for two- and three-dimensional flow

By supplementing the pressure space for Taylor–Hood elements, elements that satisfy continuity locally are produced. These elements are shown to satisfy the Babuska–Brezzi compatibility condition by using the patch argument. Two examples are presented, one illustrating the convergence rates and the other illustrating a difficulty with a Taylor–Hood element that is overcome by the element presented here.     

A total linearization method for solving viscous free boundary flow problems by the finite element method

In this paper a total linearization method is derived for solving steady viscous free boundary flow problems (including capillary effects) by the finite element method. It is shown that the influence of the geometrical unknown in the totally linearized weak formulation can be expressed in terms of boundary integrals. This means that the implementation of the method is simple. Numerical experiments show that the iterative method gives accurate results and converges very fast.