A marker‐and‐cell approach to free surface 2‐D multiphase flows

This work describes a methodology to simulate free surface incompressible multiphase flows. This novel methodology allows the simulation of multiphase flows with an arbitrary number of phases, each of them having different densities and viscosities. Surface and interfacial tension effects are also included. The numerical technique is based on the GENSMAC front‐tracking method. The velocity field is computed using a finite‐difference discretization of a modification of the Navier–Stokes equations. These equations together with the continuity equation are solved for the two‐dimensional multiphase flows, with different densities and viscosities in the different phases. The governing equations are solved on a regular Eulerian grid, and a Lagrangian mesh is employed to track free surfaces and interfaces. The method is validated by comparing numerical with analytic results for a number of simple problems; it was also employed to simulate complex problems for which no analytic solutions are available. The method presented in this paper has been shown to be robust and computationally efficient. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anisotropic adaptive stabilized finite element solver for RANS models

Aerodynamic characteristics of various geometries are predicted using a finite element formulation coupled with several numerical techniques to ensure stability and accuracy of the method. First, an edge‐based error estimator and anisotropic mesh adaptation are used to detect automatically all flow features under the constraint of a fixed number of elements, thus controlling the computational cost. A variational multiscale‐stabilized finite element method is used to solve the incompressible Navier‐Stokes equations. Finally, the Spalart‐Allmaras turbulence model is solved using the streamline upwind Petrov‐Galerkin method. This paper is meant to show that the combination of anisotropic unsteady mesh adaptation with stabilized finite element methods provides an adequate framework for solving turbulent flows at high Reynolds numbers. The proposed method was validated on several test cases by confrontation with literature of both numerical and experimental results, in terms of accuracy on the prediction of the drag and lift coefficients as well as their evolution in time for unsteady cases.     

On the usage of NURBS as interface representation in free‐surface flows

When simulating free‐surface flows using the finite element method, there are many cases where the governing equations require information which must be derived from the available discretized geometry. Examples are curvature or normal vectors. The accurate computation of this information directly from the finite element mesh often requires a high degree of refinement—which is not necessarily required to obtain an accurate flow solution. As a remedy and an option to be able to use coarser meshes, the representation of the free surface using non‐uniform rational B‐splines (NURBS) curves or surfaces is investigated in this work. The advantages of a NURBS parameterization in comparison with the standard approach are discussed. In addition, it is explored how the pressure jump resulting from surface tension effects can be handled using doubled interface nodes. Numerical examples include the computation of surface tension in a two‐phase flow as well as the computation of normal vectors as a basis for mesh deformation methods. For these examples, the improvement of the numerical solution compared with the standard approaches on identical meshes is shown. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A finite element method for free surface flows of incompressible fluids in three dimensions. Part I. Boundary fitted mesh motion

Computational fluid mechanics techniques for examining free surface problems in two‐dimensional form are now well established. Extending these methods to three dimensions requires a reconsideration of some of the difficult issues from two‐dimensional problems as well as developing new formulations to handle added geometric complexity. This paper presents a new finite element formulation for handling three‐dimensional free surface problems with a boundary‐fitted mesh and full Newton iteration, which solves for velocity, pressure, and mesh variables simultaneously. A boundary‐fitted, pseudo‐solid approach is used for moving the mesh, which treats the interior of the mesh as a fictitious elastic solid that deforms in response to boundary motion. To minimize mesh distortion near free boundary under large deformations, the mesh motion equations are rotated into normal and tangential components prior to applying boundary conditions. The Navier–Stokes equations are discretized using a Galerkin–least square/pressure stabilization formulation, which provides good convergence properties with iterative solvers. The result is a method that can track large deformations and rotations of free surface boundaries in three dimensions. The method is applied to two sample problems: solid body rotation of a fluid and extrusion from a nozzle with a rectangular cross‐section. The extrusion example exhibits a variety of free surface shapes that arise from changing processing conditions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A local domain‐free discretization method to simulate three‐dimensional compressible inviscid flows

In this paper, the domain‐free discretization method (DFD) is extended to simulate the three‐dimensional compressible inviscid flows governed by Euler equations. The discretization strategy of DFD is that the discrete form of governing equations at an interior point may involve some points outside the solution domain. The functional values at the exterior‐dependent points are updated at each time step by extrapolation along the wall normal direction in conjunction with the wall boundary conditions and the simplified momentum equation in the vicinity of the wall. Spatial discretization is achieved with the help of the finite element Galerkin approximation. The concept of ‘osculating plane’ is adopted, with which the local DFD can be easily implemented for the three‐dimensional case. Geometry‐adaptive tetrahedral mesh is employed for three‐dimensional calculations. Finally, we validate the DFD method for three‐dimensional compressible inviscid flow simulations by computing transonic flows over the ONERA M6 wing. Comparison with the reference experimental data and numerical results on boundary‐conforming grid was displayed and the results show that the present DFD results compare very well with the reference data. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Calculation of capillary jet

The Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) framework coupled with some boundary tracking techniques is proven to be an effective method for simulation of free‐surface flows. In this paper, a special ALE framework is derived with clarification of three velocities, the notion of mesh‐frozen and field‐frozen, and the notion of tentatively inertial coordinates. A weighted integral ALE governing equations are formulated on generic coordinates and discretized with a finite element method and linear implicit time scheme. The system is solved with a discrete operator splitting technique and superposition‐based logistic parallelization. The formulation and implementation are verified through several fixed‐geometry problems and a reasonably good parallel performance is observed. Capillary jet flow is the main problem of the paper and the numerical techniques for boundary tracking are elaborated, which include an indirect boundary tracking of flux method and an iterative direct boundary tracking method. Also, a high‐order compact scheme for dynamic boundary condition and a squeeze technique for kinematic boundary condition are adopted. The axisymmetric jet breakup is studied in detail and numerical results match with the published data very well. Numerical accuracy and sensitivity are studied, including effects of element type, time scheme, compact scheme, and boundary tracking techniques. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finite element‐fictitious boundary methods (FEM‐FBM) for 3D particulate flow

In this paper we discuss numerical simulation techniques using a finite element approach in combination with the fictitious boundary method (FBM) for rigid particulate flow configurations in 3D. The flow is computed with a multigrid finite element solver (FEATFLOW), the solid particles are allowed to move freely through the computational mesh which can be static or adaptively aligned by a grid deformation method allowing structured as well as unstructured meshes. We explain the details of how we can use the FBM to simulate flows with complex geometries that are hard to describe analytically. Stationary and time‐dependent numerical examples, demonstrating the use of such geometries are provided. Our numerical results include well‐known benchmark configurations showing that the method can accurately and efficiently handle prototypical particulate flow situations in 3D with particles of different shape and size. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An ALE finite element method for a coupled Stefan problem and Navier–Stokes equations with free capillary surface

In this article, an ALE finite element method to simulate the partial melting of a workpiece of metal is presented. The model includes the heat transport in both the solid and liquid part, fluid flow in the liquid phase by the Navier–Stokes equations, tracking of the melt interface solid/liquid by the Stefan condition, treatment of the capillary boundary accounting for surface tension effects and a radiative boundary condition. We show that an accurate treatment of the moving boundaries is crucial to resolve their respective influences on the flow field and thus on the overall energy transport correctly. This is achieved by a mesh‐moving method, which explicitly tracks the phase boundary and makes it possible to use a sharp interface model without singularities in the boundary conditions at the triple junction. A numerical example describing the welding of a thin‐steel wire end by a laser, where all aforementioned effects have to be taken into account, proves the effectiveness of the approach.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using fully implicit conservative statements to close open boundaries passing through recirculations

The numerical solution of the fluid flow governing equations requires the implementation of certain boundary conditions at suitable places to make the problem well‐posed. Most of numerical strategies exhibit weak performance and obtain inaccurate solutions if the solution domain boundaries are not placed at adequate locations. Unfortunately, many practical fluid flow problems pose difficulty at their boundaries because the required information for solving the PDE's is not available there. On the other hand, large solution domains with known boundary conditions normally need a higher number of mesh nodes, which can increase the computational cost. Such difficulties have motivated the CFD workers to confine the solution domain and solve it using artificial boundaries with unknown flow conditions prevailing there. In this work, we develop a general strategy, which enables the control‐volume‐based methods to close the outflow boundary at arbitrary locations where the flow conditions are not known prior to the solution. In this regard, we extend suitable conservative statements at the outflow boundary. The derived statements gradually detect the correct boundary conditions at arbitrary boundaries via an implicit procedure using a finite element volume method. The extended statements are validated by solving the truncated benchmark backward‐facing step problem. The investigation shows that the downstream boundary can pass through a recirculation zone without deteriorating the accuracy of the solution either in the domain or at its boundaries. The results indicate that the extended formulation is robust enough to be employed in solution domains with unknown boundary conditions. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An assessment of a parallel,finite element method for three‐dimensional,moving‐boundary flows driven by capillarity for simulation of viscous sintering

A parallel, finite element method is presented for the computation of three‐dimensional, free‐surface flows where surface tension effects are significant. The method employs an unstructured tetrahedral mesh, a front‐tracking arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian formulation, and fully implicit time integration. Interior mesh motion is accomplished via pseudo‐solid mesh deformation. Surface tension effects are incorporated directly into the momentum equation boundary conditions using surface identities that circumvent the need to compute second derivatives of the surface shape, resulting in a robust representation of capillary phenomena. Sample results are shown for the viscous sintering of glassy ceramic particles. The most serious performance issue is error arising from mesh distortion when boundary motion is significant. This effect can be severe enough to stop the calculations; some simple strategies for improving performance are tested. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Flow simulation on moving boundary‐fitted grids and application to fluid–structure interaction problems

We present a method for the parallel numerical simulation of transient three‐dimensional fluid–structure interaction problems. Here, we consider the interaction of incompressible flow in the fluid domain and linear elastic deformation in the solid domain. The coupled problem is tackled by an approach based on the classical alternating Schwarz method with non‐overlapping subdomains, the subproblems are solved alternatingly and the coupling conditions are realized via the exchange of boundary conditions. The elasticity problem is solved by a standard linear finite element method. A main issue is that the flow solver has to be able to handle time‐dependent domains. To this end, we present a technique to solve the incompressible Navier–Stokes equation in three‐dimensional domains with moving boundaries. This numerical method is a generalization of a finite volume discretization using curvilinear coordinates to time‐dependent coordinate transformations. It corresponds to a discretization of the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian formulation of the Navier–Stokes equations. Here the grid velocity is treated in such a way that the so‐called Geometric Conservation Law is implicitly satisfied. Altogether, our approach results in a scheme which is an extension of the well‐known MAC‐method to a staggered mesh in moving boundary‐fitted coordinates which uses grid‐dependent velocity components as the primary variables. To validate our method, we present some numerical results which show that second‐order convergence in space is obtained on moving grids. Finally, we give the results of a fully coupled fluid–structure interaction problem. It turns out that already a simple explicit coupling with one iteration of the Schwarz method, i.e. one solution of the fluid problem and one solution of the elasticity problem per time step, yields a convergent, simple, yet efficient overall method for fluid–structure interaction problems. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shallow Water Flow Analysis with Moving Boundary Technique Using Least-squares Bubble Function

This paper presents a computational simulation method for a river problem. For the actual flow problem, it is necessary to compute flow velocity, water elevation and water region at the same time. For the basic formulation, the unsteady shallow water equations are used. As the numerical approach, implicit FEM is proposed by bubble function. To control numerical stability and accuracy, LSBF (Least-Squares Bubble Function) is used to solve the finite element equations. Also, the fixed boundary technique is combined to deal with wet and dry areas in the moving finite element mesh. Some numerical tests are shown to check this method.     

带源参数的二维热传导反问题的无网格方法

利用无网格有限点法求解带源参数的二维热传导反问题,推导了相应的离散方程. 与 其它基于网格的方法相比,有限点法采用移动最小二乘法构造形函数,只需要节点信息,不 需要划分网格,用配点法离散控制方程,可以直接施加边界条件,不需要在区域内部求积分. 用有限点法求解二维热传导反问题具有数值实现简单、计算量小、可以任意布置节点等优点. 最后通过算例验证了该方法的有效性.     

A numerical study of projection algorithms in the finite element simulation of three‐dimensional viscous incompressible flow

In this work a comparative study of two versions of the projection algorithm used either for time integration or as an iterative method to solve the three‐dimensional incompressible Navier–Stokes equations is presented. It is also shown that these projection algorithms combined with the finite element method are particularly suited for the treatment of outflow boundary conditions in the context of external flows. This assertion is illustrated by means of some numerical examples in which five types of boundary conditions are compared. The scheme is applied to simulate the flow past a cylinder clamped on two fixed parallel solid walls. Comparison with experimental data available for this problem shows good agreement of the velocity and pressure fields, both computed with continuous piecewise linear elements. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A local domain‐free discretization method for simulation of incompressible flows over moving bodies

This paper presents a local domain‐free discretization (DFD) method for the simulation of unsteady flows over moving bodies governed by the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The discretization strategy of DFD is that the discrete form of partial differential equations at an interior point may involve some points outside the solution domain. All the mesh points are classified as interior points, exterior dependent points and exterior independent points. The functional values at the exterior dependent points are updated at each time step by the approximate form of solution near the boundary. When the body is moving, only the status of points is changed and the mesh can stay fixed. The issue of ‘freshly cleared nodes/cells’ encountered in usual sharp interface methods does not pose any particular difficulty in the presented method. The Galerkin finite‐element approximation is used for spatial discretization, and the discrete equations are integrated in time via a dual‐time‐stepping scheme based on artificial compressibility. In order to validate the present method for moving‐boundary flow problems, two groups of flow phenomena have been simulated: (1) flows over a fixed circular cylinder, a harmonic in‐line oscillating cylinder in fluid at rest and a transversely oscillating cylinder in uniform flow; (2) flows over a pure pitching airfoil, a heaving–pitching airfoil and a deforming airfoil. The predictions show good agreement with the published numerical results or experimental data. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A finite element immersed boundary method for fluid flow around rigid objects

This paper proposes a new immersed boundary (IB) method for solving fluid flow problems in the presence of rigid objects which are not represented by the mesh. Solving the flow around objects with complex shapes may involve extensive meshing work that has to be repeated each time a change in the geometry is needed. Important benefit would be reached if we are able to solve the flow without the need of generating a mesh that fits the shape of the immersed objects. This work presents a finite element IB method using a discretization covering the entire domain of interest, including the volume occupied by immersed objects, and which produces solutions of the flow satisfying accurately the boundary conditions at the surface of immersed bodies. In other words the finite element solution represents accurately the presence of immersed bodies while the mesh does not. This is done by including additional degrees of freedom on interface cut elements which are then eliminated at element level. The boundary of immersed objects is defined using a level set function. Solutions are shown for various flow problems and the accuracy of the present approach is measured with respect to solutions obtained on body‐fitted meshes. Copyright © 2010 Crown in the right of Canada.     

CFD simulation of two‐ and three‐dimensional free‐surface flow

The paper describes the implementation of moving‐mesh and free‐surface capabilities within a 3‐d finite‐volume Reynolds‐averaged‐Navier–Stokes solver, using surface‐conforming multi‐block structured meshes. The free‐surface kinematic condition can be applied in two ways: enforcing zero net mass flux or solving the kinematic equation by a finite‐difference method. The free surface is best defined by intermediate control points rather than the mesh vertices. Application of the dynamic boundary condition to the piezometric pressure at these points provides a hydrostatic restoring force which helps to eliminate any unnatural free‐surface undulations. The implementation of time‐marching methods on moving grids are described in some detail and it is shown that a second‐order scheme must be applied in both scalar‐transport and free‐surface equations if flows driven by free‐surface height variations are to be computed without significant wave attenuation using a modest number of time steps. Computations of five flows of theoretical and practical interest—forced motion in a pump, linear waves in a tank, quasi‐1d flow over a ramp, solitary wave interaction with a submerged obstacle and 3‐d flow about a surface‐penetrating cylinder—are described to illustrate the capabilities of our code and methods. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A method for solving the factorized vorticity-stream function equations by finite elements

A new finite element method for solving the time-dependent incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with general boundary conditions is presented. The two second-order partial differential equations for the vorticity and the stream function are factorized, apart from the non-linear advection term, by eliminating the coupling due to the double specification on the stream function at (a part of) the boundary. This is achieved by reducing the no-slip boundary conditions to projection integral conditions for the vorticity field and by evaluating the relevant quantities involved according to an extension of the method of Glowinski and Pironneau for the biharmonic problem. Time integration schemes and iterative algorithms are introduced which require the solution only of banded linear systems of symmetric type. The proposed finite element formulation is compared with its finite difference equivalent by means of a few numerical examples. The results obtained using 4-noded bilinear elements provide an illustration of the superiority of the finite element based spatial discretization.