A local grid refinement method for three‐dimensional turbulent recirculating flows

A local grid refinement method is presented and applied to a three‐dimensional turbulent recirculating flow. It is based on the staggered grid arrangement. The computational domain is covered by block‐structured subgrids of different refinement levels. The exchange of information between the subgrids is fully conservative and all grids are treated implicitly. This allows for a simultaneous solution of one variable in all grids. All variables are stored in one‐dimensional arrays. The solver selected for the solution of the discretised finite difference equations is the preconditioned bi‐conjugate gradient (Bi‐CG) method. For the case examined (turbulent flow around a surface‐mounted cube), it was found that the latter method converges faster than the line solver. The locally refined mesh improved the accuracy of the pressure distribution on cube faces compared with a coarse mesh and yielded the same results as a fine single mesh, with a 62% gain in computer time. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparison of several open boundary numerical treatments for laminar recirculating flows

Several open boundary conditions (OBCs) are compared and evaluated in the framework of the SIMPLE algorithm using staggered and non-staggered grid systems. The benchmark laminar flow test cases used for the OBC evaluation are Poiseuille-Benard flow in a channel and stratified backward-facing step flow. The investigated OBCs are linear explicit step space extrapolation, Orlanski's monochromatic wave, and pressure extrapolation. Orlanski's and pressure extrapolation open boundary treatment for unsteady and steady flows, respectively, yield little reflection and has proved to be adequate for engineering calculations.     

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.     

动态混合网格生成及隐式非定常计算方法

建立了一种基于动态混合网格的非定常数值计算方法. 混合网格由贴体的四边形网格、外场 的多层次矩形网格和中间的三角形网格构成. 当物体运动时，贴体四边形网格随物体运动而 运动，而外场的矩形网格保持静止，中间的三角形网格随之变形；当物体运动位移较大，导 致三角形网格的质量降低，甚至导致网格相交时，在局部重新生成网格. 新网格上的物理量 由旧网格上的物理量插值而得. 为了提高计算效率，采用了双时间步和子迭代相结合的隐式 有限体积格式计算非定常Navier-Stokes方程. 子迭代采用高效的块LU-SGS方法. 利用该 方法数值模拟了NACA0012振荡翼型的无黏和黏性绕流，得到了与实验和他人计算相当一致 的结果.     

Evaluation of adaptive mesh refinement and coarsening for the computation of compressible flows on unstructured meshes

The compressible gas flows of interest to aerospace applications often involve situations where shock and expansion waves are present. Decreasing the characteristic dimension of the computational cells in the vicinity of shock waves improves the quality of the computed flows. This reduction in size may be accomplished by the use of mesh adaption procedures. In this paper an analysis is presented of an adaptive mesh scheme developed for an unstructured mesh finite volume upwind computer code. This scheme is tailored to refine or coarsen the computational mesh where gradients of the flow properties are respectively high or low. The refinement and coarsening procedures are applied to the classical gas dynamic problems of the stabilization of shock waves by solid bodies. In particular, situations where oblique shock waves interact with an expansion fan and where bow shocks arise around solid bodies are considered. The effectiveness of the scheme in reducing the computational time, while increasing the solution accuracy, is assessed. It is shown that the refinement procedure alone leads to a number of computational cells which is 20% larger than when alternate passes of refinement and coarsening are used. Accordingly, a reduction of computational time of the same order of magnitude is obtained. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of adaptive mesh refinement method to complex flows in clean rooms

The adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) method is developed for three-dimensional turbulent complex flows in clean rooms using the finite volume method with a collocated grid arrangement. Clean rooms have many interesting and complex flow characteristics especially the secondary flows and the recirculation regions. The accurate numerical solution of the flows is important for the efficient design of clean rooms. The use of the conventional uniform grid requires such a high computational time and data storage capacity that they make computational fluid dynamics (CFD) less attractive for the design optimization. The AMR method is, therefore, applied by using the fine grid only in the required regions and using the coarse grid in the other regions. The velocity is chosen as the main parameter for the grid refinement because it is the most influential parameter in clean rooms. The results show that the present AMR method can reduce the computational time by eight times and the data storage requirement is only 37% of that using the conventional method, while the same order of accuracy can be maintained. The present AMR method is, therefore, proved to be a promising technique for solving three-dimensional turbulent complex flows in clean rooms.     

A numerical method to simulate turbulent cavitating flows

The objective of this paper is to develop a numerical method for simulating multiphase cavitating flows on unstructured grids. The multiphase medium is represented using a homogeneous mixture model that assumes thermal equilibrium between the liquid and vapor phases. We develop a predictor–corrector approach to solve the governing Navier–Stokes equations for the liquid/vapor mixture, together with the transport equation for the vapor mass fraction. While a non-dissipative and symmetric scheme is used in the predictor step, a novel characteristic-based filtering scheme with a second order TVD filter is developed for the corrector step to handle shocks and material discontinuities in non-ideal gases and mixtures. Additionally, a sensor based on vapor volume fraction is proposed to localize dissipation to the vicinity of discontinuities. The scheme is first validated for simple one dimensional canonical problems to verify its accuracy in predicting jump conditions across material discontinuities and shocks. It is then applied to two turbulent cavitating flow problems – over a hydrofoil using RANS and over a wedge using LES. Our results show that the simulations are in good agreement with experimental data for the above tested cases, and that the scheme can be successfully applied to both RANS and LES methodologies.     

Calculation of laminar flows with second-order schemes and collocated variable arrangement

A numerical study of laminar flows is carried out to examine the performance of two second-order discretization schemes: a total variation diminishing scheme and a second-order upwind scheme. The former has the same form as the standard first-order hybrid central upwind scheme, but with a numerical diffusion reduced by the Van Leer limiter; the latter is based on the linear extrapolation of cell face values using the two upwind neighbors. A collocated grid arrangement is used; oscillations which could be generated by pressure–velocity decoupling are avoided via the Rhie–Chow interpolation. Two iterative solution methods are used: (i) the deferred correction procedure proposed by Khosla and Rubin and (ii) implicit treatment of the second-order upwind contribution. Three two-dimensional laminar test cases are considered for assessment: the plane lid-driven cavity, the plane backward facing step and the axisymmetric pipe with sudden contraction. Experimental data are available for the two last cases. Both the total variation diminishing and the second-order upwind schemes give wiggle-free results and can predict the flowfields more accurately than the standard first-order hybrid central upwind scheme. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Calculation of cell face velocity of non-staggered grid system

In this paper,the cell face velocities in the discretization of the continuity equation,the momentum equation,and the scalar equation of a non-staggered grid system are calculated and discussed.Both the momentum interpolation and the linear interpolation are adopted to evaluate the coefficients in the discretized momentum and scalar equations.Their performances are compared.When the linear interpolation is used to calculate the coefficients,the mass residual term in the coefficients must be dropped to maintain the accuracy and convergence rate of the solution.     

A study of the recirculating flow in planar,symmetrical branching channels

A numerical method is employed to examine the flow in symmetrical, two‐dimensional branches of Y shape and Tee shape. The methodology is based on a pressure‐correction procedure within the frame of unstructured grids. Specified pressures are imposed at the outlets of the two branches. The area ratio of the branch is allowed to vary in the range of 2–3. Separation of the flow in the bifurcating region is inevitable. With equal outlet pressures, symmetrical flow patterns prevail except for the Y type branch under the conditions of high Reynolds numbers and large area ratios. This implies that the Y‐branch flow is more sensitive to small disturbances. It is shown that with a slightly higher pressure imposed on one of the two branches the structure of the recirculating flow for the Y type is greatly affected and the flow rate is reduced dramatically in the high‐pressure branch channel. In contrast, the influence on the Tee type branch is much lower since the flow behaves like a jet impinging on a confined duct. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Large-eddy simulation of transitional flows using a co-located grid

A large-eddy simulation (LES) of a transitional separated flow over a plate with a semi-circular leading at low (<0.2%) and high (5.6%) free-stream turbulence (FST) has been performed, using a co-located grid with the Rhie–Chow pressure smoothing. A numerical trip is used to produce a high FST level and a dynamic subgrid-scale model is also employed in the current study. The entire transition process leading to breakdown to turbulence has been shown clearly by the flow visualisations using instantaneous spanwise vorticities, and the differences between the low- and high-FST cases are clearly visible. Coherent structures are also visualised using isosurfaces of the Q-criterion, and for the high-FST case, the spanwise-oriented quasi-two-dimensional rolls, which are clearly present in the low-FST case, are not visible anymore. Detailed quantitative comparisons between the present LES results and experimental data and the previous LES results at low FST using a staggered grid have been done and a good agreement has been obtained, indicating that the current LES using a co-located grid with pressure smoothing can also predict transitional flows accurately.     

Analysis of fluid flow in constricted tubes and ducts using body-fitted non-staggered grids

A finite volume method for the calculation of laminar and turbulent fluid flows inside constricted tubes and ducts is described. The selected finite volume method is based on curvilinear non-orthogonal co-ordinates (body-fitted co-ordinates) and a non-staggered grid arrangement. The grids are either generated by transfinite interpolation or an elliptic grid generator. The method is employed for calculation of laminar flows through a tube, a converging-diverging duct and different constricted tubes by both a two- and a three-dimensional computer program. In addition, turbulent flow through an axisymmetric constricted tube is calculated. Both the power law scheme and the second-order upwind scheme are used. The calculated results are compared with the experimental data and with other numerical solutions.     

The prediction of spatially periodic flows using a finite‐volume model

A periodic boundary condition has been developed that can be used in conjunction with a specified flow rate to produce accurate results in spatially periodic geometries. This condition is useful in situations where the flow rate is known, or more importantly, in cases where the pressure gradient is not known a priori, such as in countercurrent flows. Using the present condition, the flow rate is imposed at the inlet in terms of a bulk velocity, but the velocity field evolves as part of the solution. The condition is formulated to be suitable for both fixed and moving periodic domains. For the case of a moving domain, a correction is introduced to account for changes in the instantaneous velocity through the periodic edges. Under periodic conditions, these corrections integrate to zero over a complete (temporal) period. The new periodic condition is shown to produce accurate results for flat and wavy‐walled channels under both induced flow and countercurrent conditions. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Algebraic turbulence models for the computation of two-dimensional high-speed flows using unstructured grids

The incorporation of algebraic turbulence models in a solver for the 2D compressible Navier–Stokes equations using triangular grids is described. A practical way to use the Cebeci–Smith model and to modify it in separated regions is proposed. The ability of the model to predict high-speed perfect-gas boundary layers is investigated from a numerical point of view.     

Local block refinement with a multigrid flow solver

A local block refinement procedure for the efficient computation of transient incompressible flows with heat transfer is presented. The procedure uses patched structured grids for the blockwise refinement and a parallel multigrid finite volume method with colocated primitive variables to solve the Navier‐Stokes equations. No restriction is imposed on the value of the refinement rate and non‐integer rates may also be used. The procedure is analysed with respect to its sensitivity to the refinement rate and to the corresponding accuracy. Several applications exemplify the advantages of the method in comparison with a common block structured grid approach. The results show that it is possible to achieve an improvement in accuracy with simultaneous significant savings in computing time and memory requirements. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The simulation of inviscid,compressible flows using an upwind kinetic method on unstructured grids

A kinetic flux-vector-splitting method has been used to solve the Euler equations for inviscid, compressible flow on unstructured grids. This method is derived from the Boltzmann equation and is an upwind, cell-centered, finite volume scheme with an explicit time-stepping procedure. The Delaunay triangulation has been used to generate the grids. The approach is demonstrated for three flow field simulations, namely the subsonic flow over a two-component high-lift aerofoil, the transonic flow over an aerofoil and the supersonic flow in a channel.     

Time-dependent solutions of viscous incompressible flows in moving co-ordinates

A time-accurate solution method for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in generalized moving coordinates is presented. A finite volume discretization method that satisfies the geometric conservation laws for time-varying computational cells is used. The discrete equations are solved by a fractional step solution procedure. The solution is second-order-accurate in space and first-order-accurate in time. The pressure and the volume fluxes are chosen as the unknowns to facilitate the formulation of a consistent Poisson equation and thus to obtain a robust Poisson solver with favourable convergence properties. The method is validated by comparing the solutions with other numerical and experimental results. Good agreement is obtained in all cases.     

Finite volume methods for laminar and turbulent flows using a penalty function approach

A penalty function, finite volume method is described for two-dimensional laminar and turbulent flows. Turbulence is modelled using the k-? model. The governing equations are discretized and the resulting algebraic equations are solved using both sequential and coupled methods. The performance of these methods is gauged with reference to a tuned SIMPLE-C algorithm. Flows considered are a square cavity with a sliding top, a plane channel flow, a plane jet impingement and a plane channel with a sudden expansion. A sequential method is employed, which uses a variety of dicretization practices, but is found to be extremely slow to converge; a coupled method, evaluated using a variety of matrix solvers, converges rapidly but, relative to the sequential approach, requires larger memory.     

Simulation of interface and free surface flows in a viscous fluid using adapting quadtree grids

A new adaptive quadtree method for simulating laminar viscous fluid problems with free surfaces and interfaces is presented in this paper. The Navier–Stokes equations are solved with a SIMPLE‐type scheme coupled with the Compressive Interface Capturing Scheme for Arbitrary Meshes (CICSAM) (Numerical prediction of two fluid systems with sharp interfaces, Ph.D. Thesis, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, 1997) volume of fluid (VoF) method and PLIC reconstruction of the volume fraction field during refinement and derefinement processes. The method is demonstrated for interface advection cases in translating and shearing flow fields and found to provide high interface resolution at low computational cost. The new method is also applied to simulation of the collapse of a water column and the results are in excellent agreement with other published data. The quadtree grids adapt to follow the movement of the free surface, whilst maintaining a band of the smallest cells surrounding the surface. The calculation is made on uniform and adapting quadtree grids and the accuracy of the quadtree calculation is shown to be the same as that made on the equivalent uniform grid. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of the finite volume method in the simulation of saturated flows of binary Mixtures with particular emphasis on Non-Darcy motions through porous media

Non-Darcy flows in saturated porous media with significative boundary and inertia effects are modelled applying the Continuum Theory of Mixtures approach and simulated by discretization of the governing equations by the finite volume method.

---

Sommario Flussi di tipo ‘Non-Darcy’ in mezzi porosi saturi, con significativi effetti di bordo ed inerziali, vengono modellati applicando l'approccio della Teoria delle Miscele per il Continuo e simulati mediante discretizzazione delle equazioni governanti con il metodo del volume finito.