A discontinuous Galerkin‐based sharp‐interface method to simulate three‐dimensional compressible two‐phase flow

A numerical method for the simulation of compressible two‐phase flows is presented in this paper. The sharp‐interface approach consists of several components: a discontinuous Galerkin solver for compressible fluid flow, a level‐set tracking algorithm to follow the movement of the interface and a coupling of both by a ghost‐fluid approach with use of a local Riemann solver at the interface. There are several novel techniques used: the discontinuous Galerkin scheme allows locally a subcell resolution to enhance the interface resolution and an interior finite volume Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) approximation at the interface. The level‐set equation is solved by the same discontinuous Galerkin scheme. To obtain a very good approximation of the interface curvature, the accuracy of the level‐set field is improved and smoothed by an additional P_NP_M‐reconstruction. The capabilities of the method for the simulation of compressible two‐phase flow are demonstrated for a droplet at equilibrium, an oscillating ellipsoidal droplet, and a shock‐droplet interaction problem at Mach 3. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An hp‐adaptive unstructured finite volume solver for compressible flows

The idea of hp‐adaptation, which has originally been developed for compact schemes (such as finite element methods), suggests an adaptation scheme using a mixture of mesh refinement and order enrichment based on the smoothness of the solution to obtain an accurate solution efficiently. In this paper, we develop an hp‐adaptation framework for unstructured finite volume methods using residual‐based and adjoint‐based error indicators. For the residual‐based error indicator, we use a higher‐order discrete operator to estimate the truncation error, whereas this estimate is weighted by the solution of the discrete adjoint problem for an output of interest to form the adaptation indicator for adjoint‐based adaptations. We perform our adaptation by local subdivision of cells with nonconforming interfaces allowed and local reconstruction of higher‐order polynomials for solution approximations. We present our results for two‐dimensional compressible flow problems including subsonic inviscid, transonic inviscid, and subsonic laminar flow around the NACA 0012 airfoil and also turbulent flow over a flat plate. Our numerical results suggest the efficiency and accuracy advantages of adjoint‐based hp‐adaptations over uniform refinement and also over residual‐based adaptation for flows with and without singularities.     

A high‐precision unstructured adaptive mesh technique for gas–liquid two‐phase flows

Adaptive mesh techniques are used widely in the numerical simulations of fluid flows, and the simulation results with high accuracies are obtained by appropriate mesh adaptations. However, gas–liquid two‐phase flows are still difficult to be simulated on adaptive meshes, especially on unstructured adaptive meshes, because the physical phenomena near gas–liquid interfaces are highly complicated and in general, not modeled appropriately on adaptive meshes. In this paper, a high‐precision unstructured adaptive mesh technique for gas–liquid two‐phase flows is developed and verified/validated. In the unstructured adaptive mesh technique, the PLIC algorithm is employed to simulate interfacial dynamic behaviors and, therefore, the reconstruction method for the interfaces in refined cells is developed, which satisfies the gas and liquid volume conservations and geometrical conservations of interfaces. In addition, the physics‐based consideration is performed on the momentum calculations near interfaces, and the calculation method with gas and liquid momentum conservations is developed. For verification, the slotted‐disk revolution problem is solved. As a result, the unstructured adaptive mesh technique succeeds in reproducing the slotted‐disk shape accurately and well maintaining the shape after one full‐revolution. The dam‐break problem is also simulated and the momentum conservative calculation method succeeds in providing physically appropriate results, which show good agreements with experimental data. Therefore, it is confirmed that the developed unstructured adaptive mesh technique is very efficient to simulate gas–liquid two‐phase flows accurately. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A compressible single‐temperature conservative two‐phase model with phase transitions

A model for multidimensional compressible two‐phase flow with pressure and velocity relaxations based on the theory of thermodynamically compatible system is extended to study liquid–gas flows with cavitation. The model assumes for each phase its own pressure and velocity, while a common temperature is considered. The governing equations form a hyperbolic system in conservative form and are derived through the theory of a thermodynamically compatible system. The phase pressure‐equalizing process and the interfacial friction are taken into account in the balance laws for the volume fractions of one phase and for the relative velocity by adding two relaxation source terms, while the phase transition is introduced into the model considering in the balance equation for the mass of one phase the relaxation of the Gibbs free energies of the two phases. A modification of the central finite‐volume Kurganov–Noelle–Petrova method is adopted in this work to solve the homogeneous hyperbolic part, while the relaxation source terms are treated implicitly. In order to investigate the effect of the mass transfer in the solution, a 1D cavitation tube problem is presented. In addition, two 2D numerical simulations regarding cavitation problem are also studied: a cavitating Richtmyer–Meshkov instability and a laser‐induced cavitation problem. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparative study of implicit and subgrid‐scale model large‐eddy simulation techniques for low‐Reynolds number airfoil applications

A computational study of a high‐fidelity, implicit large‐eddy simulation (ILES) technique with and without the use of the dynamic Smagorinsky subgrid‐scale (SGS) model is conducted to examine the contributions of the SGS model on solutions of transitional flow over the SD7003 airfoil section. ILES without an SGS model has been shown in the past to produce comparable and sometimes favorable results to traditional SGS‐based large‐eddy simulation (LES) when applied to canonical turbulent flows. This paper evaluates the necessity of the SGS model for low‐Reynolds number airfoil applications to affirm the use of ILES without SGS‐modeling for a broader class of problems such as those pertaining to micro air vehicles and low‐pressure turbines. It is determined that the addition of the dynamic Smagorinsky model does not significantly affect the time‐mean flow or statistical quantities measured around the airfoil section for the spatial resolutions and Reynolds numbers examined in this study. Additionally, the robustness and reduced computational cost of ILES without the SGS model demonstrates the attractiveness of ILES as an alternative to traditional LES. Published 2012. This article is a US Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.     

An immersed boundary solver for inviscid compressible flows

In this paper, a simple and efficient immersed boundary (IB) method is developed for the numerical simulation of inviscid compressible Euler equations. We propose a method based on coordinate transformation to calculate the unknowns of ghost points. In the present study, the body‐grid intercept points are used to build a complete bilinear (2‐D)/trilinear (3‐D) interpolation. A third‐order weighted essentially nonoscillation scheme with a new reference smoothness indicator is proposed to improve the accuracy at the extrema and discontinuity region. The dynamic blocked structured adaptive mesh is used to enhance the computational efficiency. The parallel computation with loading balance is applied to save the computational cost for 3‐D problems. Numerical tests show that the present method has second‐order overall spatial accuracy. The double Mach reflection test indicates that the present IB method gives almost identical solution as that of the boundary‐fitted method. The accuracy of the solver is further validated by subsonic and transonic flow past NACA2012 airfoil. Finally, the present IB method with adaptive mesh is validated by simulation of transonic flow past 3‐D ONERA M6 Wing. Global agreement with experimental and other numerical results are obtained.     

A pressure correction‐volume of fluid method for simulation of two‐phase flows

A pressure correction method coupled with the volume of fluid (VOF) method is developed to simulate two‐phase flows. A volume fraction function is introduced in the VOF method and is governed by an advection equation. A modified monotone upwind scheme for a conservation law (modified MUSCL) is used to solve the solution of the advection equation. To keep the initial sharpness of an interface, a slope modification scheme is introduced. The continuum surface tension (CST) model is used to calculate the surface tension force. Three schemes, central‐upwind, Parker–Youngs, and mixed schemes, are introduced to compute the interface normal vector and the gradient of the volume fraction function. Moreover, a height function technique is applied to compute the local curvature of the interface. Several basic test problems are performed to check the order of accuracy of the present numerical schemes for computing the interface normal vector and the gradient of the volume fraction function. Three physical problems, two‐dimensional broken dam problem, static drop, and spurious currents, and three‐dimensional rising bubble, are performed to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the pressure correction method. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A high-order scheme based on lattice Boltzmann flux solver for viscous compressible flow simulations

Applied Mathematics and Mechanics - In this paper, a high-order scheme based on the lattice Boltzmann flux solver (LBFS) is proposed to simulate viscous compressible flows. The flux reconstruction...     

Residual‐based artificial viscosity for simulation of turbulent compressible flow using adaptive finite element methods

In this paper, we present a finite element method with a residual‐based artificial viscosity for simulation of turbulent compressible flow, with adaptive mesh refinement based on a posteriori error estimation with sensitivity information from an associated dual problem. The artificial viscosity acts as a numerical stabilization, as shock capturing, and as turbulence capturing for large eddy simulation of turbulent flow. The adaptive method resolves parts of the flow indicated by the a posteriori error estimates but leaves shocks and turbulence under‐resolved in a large eddy simulation. The method is tested for examples in 2D and 3D and is validated against experimental data. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical simulation of a single bubble by compressible two‐phase fluids

The present work deals with the numerical investigation of a collapsing bubble in a liquid–gas fluid, which is modeled as a single compressible medium. The medium is characterized by the stiffened gas law using different material parameters for the two phases. For the discretization of the stiffened gas model, the approach of Saurel and Abgrall is employed where the flow equations, here the Euler equations, for the conserved quantities are approximated by a finite volume scheme, and an upwind discretization is used for the non‐conservative transport equations of the pressure law coefficients. The original first‐order discretization is extended to higher order applying second‐order ENO reconstruction to the primitive variables. The derivation of the non‐conservative upwind discretization for the phase indicator, here the gas fraction, is presented for arbitrary unstructured grids. The efficiency of the numerical scheme is significantly improved by employing local grid adaptation. For this purpose, multiscale‐based grid adaptation is used in combination with a multilevel time stepping strategy to avoid small time steps for coarse cells. The resulting numerical scheme is then applied to the numerical investigation of the 2‐D axisymmetric collapse of a gas bubble in a free flow field and near to a rigid wall. The numerical investigation predicts physical features such as bubble collapse, bubble splitting and the formation of a liquid jet that can be observed in experiments with laser‐induced cavitation bubbles. Opposite to the experiments, the computations reveal insight to the state inside the bubble clearly indicating that these features are caused by the acceleration of the gas due to shock wave focusing and reflection as well as wave interaction processes. While incompressible models have been used to provide useful predictions on the change of the bubble shape of a collapsing bubble near a solid boundary, we wish to study the effects of shock wave emissions into the ambient liquid on the bubble collapse, a phenomenon that may not be captured using an incompressible fluid model. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A hybrid FVM–LBM method for single and multi‐fluid compressible flow problems

The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) has established itself as an alternative approach to solve the fluid flow equations. In this work we combine LBM with the conventional finite volume method (FVM), and propose a non‐iterative hybrid method for the simulation of compressible flows. LBM is used to calculate the inter‐cell face fluxes and FVM is used to calculate the node parameters. The hybrid method is benchmarked for several one‐dimensional and two‐dimensional test cases. The results obtained by the hybrid method show a steeper and more accurate shock profile as compared with the results obtained by the widely used Godunov scheme or by a representative flux vector splitting scheme. Additional features of the proposed scheme are that it can be implemented on a non‐uniform grid, study of multi‐fluid problems is possible, and it is easily extendable to multi‐dimensions. These features have been demonstrated in this work. The proposed method is therefore robust and can possibly be applied to a variety of compressible flow situations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A hybrid Lagrangian–Eulerian particle‐level set method for numerical simulations of two‐fluid turbulent flows

A coupled Lagrangian interface‐tracking and Eulerian level set (LS) method is developed and implemented for numerical simulations of two‐fluid flows. In this method, the interface is identified based on the locations of notional particles and the geometrical information concerning the interface and fluid properties, such as density and viscosity, are obtained from the LS function. The LS function maintains a signed distance function without an auxiliary equation via the particle‐based Lagrangian re‐initialization technique. To assess the new hybrid method, numerical simulations of several ‘standard interface‐moving’ problems and two‐fluid laminar and turbulent flows are conducted. The numerical results are evaluated by monitoring the mass conservation, the turbulence energy spectral density function and the consistency between Eulerian and Lagrangian components. The results of our analysis indicate that the hybrid particle‐level set method can handle interfaces with complex shape change, and can accurately predict the interface values without any significant (unphysical) mass loss or gain, even in a turbulent flow. The results obtained for isotropic turbulence by the new particle‐level set method are validated by comparison with those obtained by the ‘zero Mach number’, variable‐density method. For the cases with small thermal/mass diffusivity, both methods are found to generate similar results. Analysis of the vorticity and energy equations indicates that the destabilization effect of turbulence and the stability effect of surface tension on the interface motion are strongly dependent on the density and viscosity ratios of the fluids. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A local mesh refinement approach for large‐eddy simulations of turbulent flows

In this paper, a local mesh refinement (LMR) scheme on Cartesian grids for large‐eddy simulations is presented. The approach improves the calculation of ghost cell pressures and velocities and combines LMR with high‐order interpolation schemes at the LMR interface and throughout the rest of the computational domain to ensure smooth and accurate transition of variables between grids of different resolution. The approach is validated for turbulent channel flow and flow over a matrix of wall‐mounted cubes for which reliable numerical and experimental data are available. Comparisons of predicted first‐order and second‐order turbulence statistics with the validation data demonstrated a convincing agreement. Importantly, it is shown that mean streamwise velocities and fluctuating turbulence quantities transition smoothly across coarse‐to‐fine and fine‐to‐coarse interfaces. © 2016 The Authors International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd     

A higher‐order unsplit 2D direct Eulerian finite volume method for two‐material compressible flows based on the MOOD paradigms

A higher‐order unsplit multi‐dimensional discretization of the diffuse interface model for two‐material compressible flows proposed by R. Saurel, F. Petitpas and R. A. Berry in 2009 is developed. The proposed higher‐order method is based on the concepts of the Multidimensional Optimal Order Detection (MOOD) method introduced in three recent papers for single‐material flows. The first‐order unsplit multi‐dimensional Finite Volume discretization presented by SPB serves as foundation for the development of the higher‐order unlimited schemes. Specific detection criteria along with a novel decrementing algorithm for the MOOD method are designed in order to deal with the complexity of multi‐material flows. Numerically, we compare errors and computational times on several 1D problems (stringent shock tube and cavitation problems) computed on 2D meshes with the second‐ and fourth‐order MOOD methods using a classical MUSCL method as reference. Several simulations of a 2D shocked R22 bubble in the air are also presented on Cartesian and unstructured meshes with the second‐ and fourth‐order MOOD methods, and qualitative comparisons confirm the conclusions obtained with 1D problems. These numerical results demonstrate the robustness of the MOOD approach and the interest of using more than second‐order methods even for locally singular solutions of complex physics models. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Characteristic‐based inlet and outlet boundary conditions for incompressible flows

Determining boundary conditions (BCs) for incompressible flows is such a delicate matter that affects the accuracy of the results. In this research, a new characteristic‐based BC for incompressible Navier‐Stokes equations is introduced. Discretization of equations has been done via finite volume. Additionally, artificial compressibility correction has been employed to deal with equations. Ordinary extrapolation from inner cells of a domain was used as a traditional way to estimate pressure and velocities on solid wall and inlet/outlet boundaries. Here, this method was substituted by the newly proposed BCs based on the characteristics of artificial compressibility equations. To follow this purpose, a computer code has been developed to carry out series of numerical tests for a flow over a backward‐facing step and was applied to a wide range of Reynolds numbers and grid combinations. Calculation of convective and viscous fluxes was done using Jameson's averaging scheme. Employing the characteristic‐based method for determining BCs has shown an improved convergence rate and reduced calculation time comparing with those of traditional ones. Furthermore, with the reduction of domain and computational cells, a similar accuracy was achieved for the results in comparison with the ones obtained from the traditional extrapolation method, and these results were in good agreement with the ones in the literature.     

A local‐analytic‐based discretization procedure for the numerical solution of incompressible flows

An Erratum has been published for this article in International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids 2005, 49(8): 933. We present a local‐analytic‐based discretization procedure for the numerical solution of viscous fluid flows governed by the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The general procedure consists of building local interpolants obtained from local analytic solutions of the linear multi‐dimensional advection–diffusion equation, prototypical of the linearized momentum equations. In view of the local analytic behaviour, the resulting computational stencil and coefficient values are functions of the local flow conditions. The velocity–pressure coupling is achieved by a discrete projection method. Numerical examples in the form of well‐established verification and validation benchmarks are presented to demonstrate the capabilities of the formulation. The discretization procedure is implemented alongside the ability to treat embedded and non‐matching grids with relative motion. Of interest are flows at high Reynolds number, ??(10⁵)–??(10⁷), for which the formulation is found to be robust. Applications include flow past a circular cylinder undergoing vortex‐induced vibrations (VIV) at high Reynolds number. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On high‐resolution schemes for solving unsteady compressible two‐phase dilute viscous flows

A high‐resolution numerical scheme based on the MUSCL–Hancock approach is developed to solve unsteady compressible two‐phase dilute viscous flow. Numerical considerations for the development of the scheme are provided. Several solvers for the Godunov fluxes are tested and the results lead to the choice of an exact Riemann solver adapted for both gaseous and dispersed phases. The accuracy of the scheme is proven step by step through specific test cases. These simulations are for one‐phase viscous flows over a flat plate in subsonic and supersonic regimes, unsteady flows in a low‐pressure shock tube, two‐phase dilute viscous flows over a flat plate and, finally, two‐phase unsteady viscous flows in a shock tube. The results are compared with well‐established analytical and numerical solutions and very good agreement is achieved. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Toward low‐noise synthetic turbulent inflow conditions for aeroacoustic calculations

The accuracy of boundary conditions for computational aeroacoustics is a well‐known challenge, due in part to the necessity of truncating the flow domain and replacing the analytical boundary conditions at infinity with numerical boundary conditions. In particular, the inflow boundary condition involving turbulent velocity or scalar fields is likely to introduce spurious waves into the domain, therefore degrading the flow behavior and deteriorating the physical acoustic waves. In this work, a method to generate low‐noise, divergence‐free, synthetic turbulence for inflow boundary conditions is proposed. It relies on the classical view of turbulence as a superposition of random eddies convected with the mean flow. Within the proposed model, the vector potential and the requirement that the individual eddies must satisfy the linearized momentum equations about the mean flow are used. The model is tested using isolated eddies convected through the inflow boundary and an experimental benchmark data for spatially decaying isotropic turbulence. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A further work on multi‐phase two‐fluid approach for compressible multi‐phase flows

This paper is to continue our previous work Niu (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 2001; 36 :351–371) on solving a two‐fluid model for compressible liquid–gas flows using the AUSMDV scheme. We first propose a pressure–velocity‐based diffusion term originally derived from AUSMDV scheme Wada and Liou (SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 1997; 18 (3):633—657) to enhance its robustness. The scheme can be applied to gas and liquid fluids universally. We then employ the stratified flow model Chang and Liou (J. Comput. Physics 2007; 225 :240–873) for spatial discretization. By defining the fluids in different regions and introducing inter‐phasic force on cell boundary, the stratified flow model allows the conservation laws to be applied on each phase, and therefore, it is able to capture fluid discontinuities, such as the fluid interfaces and shock waves, accurately. Several benchmark tests are studied, including the Ransom's Faucet problem, 1D air–water shock tube problems, 2D shock‐water column and 2D shock‐bubble interaction problems. The results indicate that the incorporation of the new dissipation into AUSM⁺‐up scheme and the stratified flow model is simple, accurate and robust enough for the compressible multi‐phase flows. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.