Numerical simulation of the performance of a snow fence with airfoil snow plates by FVM

The aim of this work is to analyze the efficiency of a snow fence with airfoil snow plates to avoid the snowdrift formation, to improve visibility and to prevent blowing snow disasters on highways and railways. In order to attain this objective, it is necessary to solve particle transport equations along with the turbulent fluid flow equations since there are two phases: solid phase (snow particles) and fluid phase (air). In the first place, the turbulent flow is modelled by solving the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations for incompressible viscous flows through the finite volume method (FVM) and then, once the flow velocity field has been determined, representative particles are tracked using the Lagrangian approach. Within the particle transport models, we have used a particle transport model termed as Lagrangian particle tracking model, where particulates are tracked through the flow in a Lagrangian way. The full particulate phase is modelled by just a sample of about 15,000 individual particles. The tracking is carried out by forming a set of ordinary differential equations in time for each particle, consisting of equations for position and velocity. These equations are then integrated using a simple integration method to calculate the behaviour of the particles as they traverse the flow domain. Finally, the conclusions of this work are exposed.     

Effective velocity in compressible Navier-Stokes equations with third-order derivatives

A formulation of certain barotropic compressible Navier-Stokes equations with third-order derivatives as a viscous Euler system is proposed by using an effective velocity variable. The equations model, for instance, viscous Korteweg or quantum Navier-Stokes flows. The formulation in the new variable allows for the derivation of an entropy identity, which is known as the BD (Bresch-Desjardins) entropy equation. As a consequence of this estimate, a new global-in-time existence result for the one-dimensional quantum Navier-Stokes equations with strictly positive particle densities is proved.     

Entropy generation and shock resolution in the particle model of compressible fluids

The examination of the particle model of compressible fluids that has been developed by the author [Numer. Math. (1997) 76: 111–142] and that has recently been extended to particles of variable size [Numer. Math. (1999) 82: 143–159], is continued. It is shown that, in the limit of particle sizes tending to zero, both the mass density and the mass flux density and the entropy density and the entropy flux density converge in the weak sense and satisfy the corresponding conservation laws. To incorporate entropy generation in shocks, a new kind of viscous force is introduced. Received November 22, 1996 / Revised version received March 30, 1998     

Modeling of two-phase flows with surface tension by finite pointset method (FPM)

A meshfree method for two-phase immiscible incompressible flows including surface tension is presented. The continuum surface force (CSF) model is used to include the surface tension force. The incompressible Navier–Stokes equation is considered as the mathematical model. Application of implicit projection method results in linear second-order partial differential equations for velocities and pressure. These equations are then solved by the finite pointset method (FPM), which is a meshfree and Lagrangian method. The fluid is represented as finite number of particles and the immiscible fluids are distinguished by the color of each particle. The interface is tracked automatically by advecting the color functions for each particle. Two test cases, Laplace's law and the Rayleigh–Taylor instability in 2D have been presented. The results are found to be consistent with the theoretical results.     

Forchheimer law derived by homogenization of gas flow in turbomachines

A general formulation of the homogenization problem of compressible fluid flow through a periodic porous material in turbomachines is presented here. This formulation is able to derive a Forchheimer law with a mean velocity dependent permeability as equivalent macroscopic behavior. To specify this permeability, additional flow problems are defined on the unit cell and solved by a mixed stabilized finite element discretization. The application of the Galerkin least-square (GLS) method requires the introduction of two stabilization terms with appropriate parameters. The mixed finite element discretization of these unit cell problems is finally outlined.     

Low Mach Number Limit of Viscous Polytropic Flows: Formal Asymptotics in the Periodic Case

This article is devoted to the low Mach number limit of weak solutions to the compressible Navier–Stokes equations for polytropic fluids with periodic boundary conditions and ill‐prepared data. We derive formally the equation satisfied by the mean value of the velocity and the equations governing the dynamics of the nonlinear acoustic waves in dimension d= 2 or 3.     

Improving shock-free compressible RANS solvers for LES on unstructured meshes

Standard numerical methods used to solve the Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes equations are known to be too dissipative to carry out large eddy simulations since the artificial dissipation they introduce to stabilize the discretization of the convection term usually interacts strongly with the subgrid scale model. A possible solution is to resort to non-dissipative central schemes. Unfortunately, these schemes are in general unstable. A way to reach stability is to select a central scheme that conserves the discrete kinetic energy. To that purpose, a family of kinetic energy conserving schemes is developed to perform simulations of compressible shock-free flows on unstructured grids. A direct numerical simulation of the flow past a sphere at a Reynolds number of 300 and a large eddy simulation at a Reynolds number of 10,000 are performed to validate the methodology.     

On the incompressible limits for the full magnetohydrodynamics flows

In this article the incompressible limits of weak solutions to the governing equations for magnetohydrodynamics flows on both bounded and unbounded domains are established. The governing equations for magnetohydrodynamic flows are expressed by the full Navier-Stokes system for compressible fluids enhanced by forces due to the presence of the magnetic field as well as the gravity and with an additional equation which describes the evolution of the magnetic field. The scaled analogues of the governing equations for magnetohydrodynamic flows involve the Mach number, Froude number and Alfven number. In the case of bounded domains the establishment of the singular limit relies on a detail analysis of the eigenvalues of the acoustic operator, whereas the case of unbounded domains is being treated by their suitable approximation by a family of bounded domains and the derivation of uniform bounds.     

Compactness of weak solutions to the three-dimensional compressible magnetohydrodynamic equations

The compactness of weak solutions to the magnetohydrodynamic equations for the viscous, compressible, heat conducting fluids is considered in both the three-dimensional space R³ and the three-dimensional periodic domains. The viscosities, the heat conductivity as well as the magnetic coefficient are allowed to depend on the density, and may vanish on the vacuum. This paper provides a different idea from [X. Hu, D. Wang, Global solutions to the three-dimensional full compressible magnetohydrodynamic flows, Comm. Math. Phys. (2008), in press] to show the compactness of solutions of viscous, compressible, heat conducting magnetohydrodynamic flows, derives a new entropy identity, and shows that the limit of a sequence of weak solutions is still a weak solution to the compressible magnetohydrodynamic equations.     

A blow-up criterion for 3D compressible viscoelastic flow with large initial data

In this paper, we consider a Cauchy problem for the three-dimensional compressible viscoelastic flow with large initial data. We establish a blow-up criterion for the strong solutions in terms of the gradient of velocity only, which is similar to the Beale-Kato-Majda criterion for ideal incompressible flow (cf. Beale et al. (1984) [20]) and the blow-up criterion for the compressible Navier-Stokes equations (cf. Huang et al. (2011) [21]).     

Numerical investigation of blood flow. Part I: In microvessel bifurcations

In some diseases there is a focal pattern of velocity in regions of bifurcation, and thus the dynamics of bifurcation has been investigated in this work. A computational model of blood flow through branching geometries has been used to investigate the influence of bifurcation on blood flow distribution. The flow analysis applies the time-dependent, three-dimensional, incompressible Navier–Stokes equations for Newtonian fluids. The governing equations of mass and momentum conservation were solved to calculate the pressure and velocity fields. Movement of blood flow from an arteriole to a venule via a capillary has been simulated using the volume of fluid (VOF) method. The proposed simulation method would be a useful tool in understanding the hydrodynamics of blood flow where the interaction between the RBC deformation and blood flow movement is important. Discrete particle simulation has been used to simulate the blood flow in a bifurcation with solid and fluid particles. The fluid particle method allows for modeling the plasma as a particle ensemble, where each particle represents a collective unit of fluid, which is defined by its mass, moment of inertia, and translational and angular momenta. These kinds of simulations open a new way for modeling the dynamics of complex, viscoelastic fluids at the micro-scale, where both liquid and solid phases are treated with discrete particles.     

Towards efficient tracking of inertial particles with high-order multidomain methods

This paper develops an efficient particle tracking algorithm to be used in fluid simulations approximated by a high-order multidomain discretization of the Navier–Stokes equations. We discuss how to locate a particle's host subdomain, how to interpolate the flow field to its location, and how to integrate its motion in time. A search algorithm for the nearest subdomain and quadrature point, tuned to a typical quadrilateral isoparametric spectral subdomain, takes advantage of the inverse of the linear blending equation. We show that to compute particle-laden flows, a sixth-order Lagrangian polynomial that uses points solely within a subdomain is sufficiently accurate to interpolate the carrier phase variables to the particle position. Time integration of particles with a lower-order Adams–Bashforth scheme, rather than the fourth-order Runge–Kutta scheme often used for the integration of the carrier phase, increases computational efficiency while maintaining engineering accuracy. We verify the tracking algorithm with numerical tests on a steady channel flow and an unsteady backward-facing step flow.     

Long-time behavior of one-dimensional compressible Bingham flows

Barotropic flows of one-dimensional compressible Bingham fluids are considered. Long-time behavior of the corresponding initial-boundary problem is investigated. The uniform upper and lower bounds for the density and a decay of the kinetic energy are established. We admit a class of mass forces not considered for similar problems to Newtonian fluids. Under additional assumptions on the mass force, we achieve strong estimates for the solution (uniformly in time) and decays of the velocity and its derivatives. Received: April 14, 2004; revised: November 22, 2004     

Transonic shocks for steady Euler flows with cylindrical symmetry

In this paper, we prove the existence of transonic shocks adjacent to a uniform one for the full Euler system for steady compressible fluids with cylindrical symmetry in a cylinder, and consequently show the stability of such uniform transonic shocks. Mathematically we solve a free boundary problem for a quasi-linear elliptic–hyperbolic composite system. This reveals that the boundary conditions and equations interact in a subtle way. The key point is to “separate” in a suitable way the elliptic and hyperbolic parts of the system. The approach developed here can be applied to deal with certain multidimensional problems concerning stability of transonic shocks for the full Euler system.     

A blow-up criterion for compressible viscous heat-conductive flows

We study an initial boundary value problem for the Navier-Stokes equations of compressible viscous heat-conductive fluids in a 2-D periodic domain or the unit square domain. We establish a blow-up criterion for the local strong solutions in terms of the gradient of the velocity only, which coincides with the famous Beale-Kato-Majda criterion for ideal incompressible flows.     

A projection technique for incompressible flow in the meshless finite volume particle method

The finite volume particle method is a meshless discretization technique, which generalizes the classical finite volume method by using smooth, overlapping and moving test functions applied in the weak formulation of the conservation law. The method was originally developed for hyperbolic conservation laws so that the compressible Euler equations particularly apply. In the present work we analyze the discretization error and enforce consistency by a new set of geometrical quantities. Furthermore, we introduce a discrete Laplace operator for the scheme in order to extend the method to second order partial differential equations. Finally, we transfer Chorins projection technique to the finite volume particle method in order to obtain a meshless scheme for incompressible flow. AMS subject classification 65M99, 68U20, 76B99, 76M12, 76M25, 76M28     

Finite element analysis of the vibration problem of a plate coupled with a fluid

Summary. We consider the approximation of the vibration modes of an elastic plate in contact with a compressible fluid. The plate is modelled by Reissner-Mindlin equations while the fluid is described in terms of displacement variables. This formulation leads to a symmetric eigenvalue problem. Reissner-Mindlin equations are discretized by a mixed method, the equations for the fluid with Raviart-Thomas elements and a non conforming coupling is used on the interface. In order to prove that the method is locking free we consider a family of problems, one for each thickness , and introduce appropriate scalings for the physical parameters so that these problems attain a limit when . We prove that spurious eigenvalues do not arise with this discretization and we obtain optimal order error estimates for the eigenvalues and eigenvectors valid uniformly on the thickness parameter t. Finally we present numerical results confirming the good performance of the method. Received February 4, 1998 / Revised version received May 26, 1999 / Published online June 21, 2000     

Finite element analysis of compressible and incompressible fluid-solid systems

This paper deals with a finite element method to solve interior fluid-structure vibration problems valid for compressible and incompressible fluids. It is based on a displacement formulation for both the fluid and the solid. The pressure of the fluid is also used as a variable for the theoretical analysis yielding a well posed mixed linear eigenvalue problem. Lowest order triangular Raviart-Thomas elements are used for the fluid and classical piecewise linear elements for the solid. Transmission conditions at the fluid-solid interface are taken into account in a weak sense yielding a nonconforming discretization. The method does not present spurious or circulation modes for nonzero frequencies. Convergence is proved and error estimates independent of the acoustic speed are given. For incompressible fluids, a convenient equivalent stream function formulation and a post-process to compute the pressure are introduced.

     

Uniqueness and continuous dependence of weak solutions in compressible magnetohydrodynamics

We prove uniqueness and continuous dependence on initial data of weak solutions of the equations of compressible magnetohydrodynamics. The solutions we consider may exhibit discontinuities in density and in the gradients of velocity, temperature, and magnetic field. Continuous dependence is deduced by duality from existence and regularity of solutions of the adjoint of the first variation system. The analysis is complicated by the absence of strict parabolicity, the strong nonlinear coupling in the highest-order terms, and the lack of regularity in the coefficients of the adjoint system.Research supported in part by the NSF under Grant DMS-0305072.Received: May 5, 2004     

The formulation of linear theory of a reflected shock in cylindrical geometry

In this paper we formulate the linear theory for compressible fluids in cylindrical geometry with small perturbation at the material interface. We derive the first order equations in the smooth regions, boundary conditions at the shock fronts and the contact interface by linearizing the Euler equations and Rankine-Hugoniot conditions. The small amplitude solution formulated in this paper will be important for calibration of results from full numerical simulation of compressible fluids in cylindrical geometry.