A Jacobian‐free Newton–Krylov method for thermalhydraulics simulations

The current paper is focused on investigating a Jacobian‐free Newton–Krylov (JFNK) method to obtain a fully implicit solution for two‐phase flows. In the JFNK formulation, the Jacobian matrix is not directly evaluated, potentially leading to major computational savings compared with a simple Newton's solver. The objectives of the present paper are as follows: (i) application of the JFNK method to two‐fluid models; (ii) investigation of the advantages and disadvantages of the fully implicit JFNK method compared with commonly used explicit formulations and implicit Newton–Krylov calculations using the determination of the Jacobian matrix; and (iii) comparison of the numerical predictions with those obtained by the Canadian Algorithm for Thermaulhydraulics Network Analysis 4. Two well‐known benchmarks are considered, the water faucet and the oscillating manometer. An isentropic two‐fluid model is selected. Time discretization is performed using a backward Euler scheme. A Crank–Nicolson scheme is also implemented to check the effect of temporal discretization on the predictions. Advection Upstream Splitting Method+ is applied to the convective fluxes. The source terms are discretized using a central differencing scheme. One explicit and two implicit formulations, one with Newton's solver with the Jacobian matrix and one with JFNK, are implemented. A detailed grid and model parameter sensitivity analysis is performed. For both cases, the JFNK predictions are in good agreement with the analytical solutions and explicit profiles. Further, stable results can be achieved using high CFL numbers up to 200 with a suitable choice of JFNK parameters. The computational time is significantly reduced by JFNK compared with the calculations requiring the determination of the Jacobian matrix. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Low‐cost implicit schemes for all‐speed flows on unstructured meshes

Matrix‐free implicit treatments are now commonly used for computing compressible flow problems: a reduced cost per iteration and low‐memory requirements are their most attractive features. This paper explains how it is possible to preserve these features for all‐speed flows, in spite of the use of a low‐Mach preconditioning matrix. The proposed approach exploits a particular property of a widely used low‐Mach preconditioner proposed by Turkel. Its efficiency is demonstrated on some steady and unsteady applications. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A variational multiscale Newton–Schur approach for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

In the following paper, we present a consistent Newton–Schur (NS) solution approach for variational multiscale formulations of the time‐dependent Navier–Stokes equations in three dimensions. The main contributions of this work are a systematic study of the variational multiscale method for three‐dimensional problems and an implementation of a consistent formulation suitable for large problems with high nonlinearity, unstructured meshes, and non‐symmetric matrices. In addition to the quadratic convergence characteristics of a Newton–Raphson‐based scheme, the NS approach increases computational efficiency and parallel scalability by implementing the tangent stiffness matrix in Schur complement form. As a result, more computations are performed at the element level. Using a variational multiscale framework, we construct a two‐level approach to stabilizing the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations based on a coarse and fine‐scale subproblem. We then derive the Schur complement form of the consistent tangent matrix. We demonstrate the performance of the method for a number of three‐dimensional problems for Reynolds number up to 1000 including steady and time‐dependent flows. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the application of the Helmholtz–Hodge decomposition in projection methods for incompressible flows with general boundary conditions

This paper is concerned with the analysis of the Helmholtz–Hodge decomposition theorem since it plays a fundamental role in the projection methods that are adopted in the numerical solution of the Navier–Stokes equations for incompressible flows. The paper highlights the role of the orthogonal decomposition of a vector field in a bounded domain when general boundary conditions are in effect. In fact, even if Fractional Time‐Step Methods are standard procedures for de‐coupling the pressure gradient and the velocity field, many problems are encountered in performing the decoupling with higher accuracy. Since the problem of determining a unique and orthogonal decomposition requires only one boundary condition to be well posed, thus either the normal or the tangential ones, result exactly imposed at the end of the projection. Numerical errors are introduced in terms of both the pressure and the velocity but the orthogonality of decomposition guarantees that the former does not contribute to affect the accuracy of the latter. Moreover, it is shown that depending on the meaning of the vector to be decomposed, i.e. acceleration or velocity, the true orthogonal projector can be defined only when suitable boundary conditions are verified. Conversely, it is shown that when the decomposition results non‐orthogonal, the velocity accuracy suffers of other errors. The issue on the resulting accuracy order of the procedure is clearly addressed by means of several accuracy studies and a strategy for improving it is proposed. This paper follows and integrates the issues reported in Iannelli and Denaro (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 2003; 42 : 399–437). Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numbering techniques for preconditioners in iterative solvers for compressible flows

We consider Newton–Krylov methods for solving discretized compressible Euler equations. A good preconditioner in the Krylov subspace method is crucial for the efficiency of the solver. In this paper we consider a point‐block Gauss–Seidel method as preconditioner. We describe and compare renumbering strategies that aim at improving the quality of this preconditioner. A variant of reordering methods known from multigrid for convection‐dominated elliptic problems is introduced. This reordering algorithm is essentially black‐box and significantly improves the robustness and efficiency of the point‐block Gauss–Seidel preconditioner. Results of numerical experiments using the QUADFLOW solver and the PETSc library are given. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SIMPLE‐type preconditioners for cell‐centered,colocated finite volume discretization of incompressible Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes equations

This paper contains a comparison of four SIMPLE‐type methods used as solver and as preconditioner for the iterative solution of the (Reynolds‐averaged) Navier–Stokes equations, discretized with a finite volume method for cell‐centered, colocated variables on unstructured grids. A matrix‐free implementation is presented, and special attention is given to the treatment of the stabilization matrix to maintain a compact stencil suitable for unstructured grids. We find SIMPLER preconditioning to be robust and efficient for academic test cases and industrial test cases. Compared with the classical SIMPLE solver, SIMPLER preconditioning reduces the number of nonlinear iterations by a factor 5–20 and the CPU time by a factor 2–5 depending on the case. The flow around a ship hull at Reynolds number 2E9, for example, on a grid with cell aspect ratio up to 1:1E6, can be computed in 3 instead of 15 h.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An unsteady incompressible Navier–Stokes solver for large eddy simulation of turbulent flows

An unsteady incompressible Navier–Stokes solver that uses a dual time stepping method combined with spatially high‐order‐accurate finite differences, is developed for large eddy simulation (LES) of turbulent flows. The present solver uses a primitive variable formulation that is based on the artificial compressibility method and various convergence–acceleration techniques are incorporated to efficiently simulate unsteady flows. A localized dynamic subgrid model, which is formulated using the subgrid kinetic energy, is employed for subgrid turbulence modeling. To evaluate the accuracy and the efficiency of the new solver, a posteriori tests for various turbulent flows are carried out and the resulting turbulence statistics are compared with existing experimental and direct numerical simulation (DNS) data. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A VORTICITY–STREAMFUNCTION FORMULATION FOR STEADY INCOMPRESSIBLE TWO-DIMENSIONAL FLOWS

A vorticity–streamfunction formulation for incompressible planar viscous flows is presented. The standard kinematic field equations are discretized using centred finite difference schemes and solved in a coupled way via a Newton-like linearization scheme. The linearized system of partial differential equations is handled through the restarting linear GMRES algorithm, preconditioned by means of an incomplete LU approximate factorization. The proposed solution technique constitutes a fast and robust algorithm for treating laminar flows at high Reynolds numbers. The pressure field is obtained at a subsequent step by solving a convection– diffusion equation in terms of the stagnation pressure, which presents certain advantages compared with the widely used static pressure Poisson equation. Results are shown for a wide variety of applications including internal and external flows.     

Implicit solution of time spectral method for periodic unsteady flows

The present paper investigates the implicit solution of time spectral model for periodic unsteady flows. In the time spectral model, the physical time derivative is approximated using spectral method. The robustness issues associated with implicit solution of time spectral model are analyzed and validated by numerical results. It is found that spectral approximation of the time derivative weakens the diagonal dominance property of the Jacobian matrix, resulting in the deterioration of stability and convergence speed. In this paper we propose to solve the coupled governing equations implicitly using multigrid preconditioned generalized minimal residual (GMRES) method, which demonstrates favorable convergence speed. Also it is demonstrated that the current method is insensitive to the variations of frequency and number of harmonics. Comparison of computation results with dual time step unsteady computation validates the high efficiency of the current method. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parallel‐in‐time simulation of the unsteady Navier–Stokes equations for incompressible flow

In this paper, we present an application of a parallel‐in‐time algorithm for the solution of the unsteady Navier–Stokes model equations that are of parabolic–elliptic type. This method is based on the alternated use of a coarse global sequential solver and a fine local parallel one. A standard finite volume/finite differences first‐order approach is used for discretization of the unsteady two‐dimensional Navier–Stokes equations. The Taylor vortex decay problem and the confined flow around a square cylinder were selected as unsteady flow examples to illustrate and analyse the properties of the parallel‐in‐time method through numerical experiments. The influence of several parameters on the computing time required to perform a parallel‐in‐time calculation on a PC cluster was verified. Among them we have analysed the influence of the number of processors, the number of iterations for convergence, the resolution of the spatial domain and the influence of the time‐step sizes ratio between the coarse and fine grids. Significant computer time saving was achieved when compared with the single processor computing time, particularly when the spatial dimension of the problem is low and the temporal scale is large. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global volume conservation in unsteady free surface flows with energy absorbing far‐end boundaries

A wave absorption filter for the far‐end boundary of semi‐infinite large reservoirs is developed for numerical simulation of unsteady free surface flows. Mathematical model is based on finite volume solution of the Navier–Stokes equations and depth‐integrated continuity equation to track the free surface. The Sommerfeld boundary condition is applied at the far‐end of the truncated computational domain. A dissipation zone is formed by applying artificial pressure on water surface to dissipate the kinetic energy of the outgoing waves. The computational scheme is tested to verify the conservation of total fluid volume in the domain for long simulation durations. Combination of the Sommerfeld boundary and dissipation zone can effectively minimize reflections and prevent cumulative changes in total fluid volume in the domain. Solitary wave, nonlinear periodic waves and irregular waves are simulated to illustrate the numerical developments. Earthquake excited surface waves and nonlinear hydrodynamic pressures in a dam–reservoir are computed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An unsteady single‐phase level set method for viscous free surface flows

The single‐phase level set method for unsteady viscous free surface flows is presented. In contrast to the standard level set method for incompressible flows, the single‐phase level set method is concerned with the solution of the flow field in the water (or the denser) phase only. Some of the advantages of such an approach are that the interface remains sharp, the computation is performed within a fluid with uniform properties and that only minor computations are needed in the air. The location of the interface is determined using a signed distance function, and appropriate interpolations at the fluid/fluid interface are used to enforce the jump conditions. A reinitialization procedure has been developed for non‐orthogonal grids with large aspect ratios. A convective extension is used to obtain the velocities at previous time steps for the grid points in air, which allows a good estimation of the total derivatives. The method was applied to three unsteady tests: a plane progressive wave, sloshing in a two‐dimensional tank, and the wave diffraction problem for a surface ship, and the results compared against analytical solutions or experimental data. The method can in principle be applied to any problem in which the standard level set method works, as long as the stress on the second phase can be specified (or neglected) and no bubbles appear in the flow during the computation. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modified augmented Lagrangian preconditioners for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

We study different variants of the augmented Lagrangian (AL)‐based block‐triangular preconditioner introduced by the first two authors in [SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 2006; 28 : 2095–2113]. The preconditioners are used to accelerate the convergence of the Generalized Minimal Residual method (GMRES) applied to various finite element and Marker‐and‐Cell discretizations of the Oseen problem in two and three space dimensions. Both steady and unsteady problems are considered. Numerical experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed preconditioners for a wide range of problem parameters. Implementation on parallel architectures is also considered. The AL‐based approach is further generalized to deal with linear systems from stabilized finite element discretizations. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High‐order ILU preconditioners for CFD problems

This paper tests a number of incomplete lower–upper (ILU)‐type preconditioners for solving indefinite linear systems, which arise from complex applications such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Both point and block preconditioners are considered. The paper focuses on ILU factorization that can be computed with high accuracy by allowing liberal amounts of fill‐in. A number of strategies for enhancing the stability of the factorizations are examined. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time‐linearized time‐harmonic 3‐D Navier–Stokes shock‐capturing schemes

In the present paper, a numerical method for the computation of time‐harmonic flows, using the time‐linearized compressible Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes equations is developed and validated. The method is based on the linearization of the discretized nonlinear equations. The convective fluxes are discretized using an O(Δx) MUSCL scheme with van Leer flux‐vector‐splitting. Unsteady perturbations of the turbulent stresses are linearized using a frozen‐turbulence‐Reynolds‐number hypothesis, to approximate eddy‐viscosity perturbations. The resulting linear system is solved using a pseudo‐time‐marching implicit ADI‐AF (alternating‐directions‐implicit approximate‐factorization) procedure with local pseudo‐time‐steps, corresponding to a matrix‐successive‐underrelaxation procedure. The stability issues associated with the pseudo‐time‐marching solution of the time‐linearized Navier–Stokes equations are discussed. Comparison of computations with measurements and with time‐nonlinear computations for 3‐D shock‐wave oscillation in a square duct, for various back‐pressure fluctuation frequencies (180, 80, 20 and 10 Hz), assesses the shock‐capturing capability of the time‐linearized scheme. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High‐order strand grid methods for low‐speed and incompressible flows

A novel high‐order finite volume scheme using flux correction methods in conjunction with structured finite differences is extended to low Mach and incompressible flows on strand grids. Flux correction achieves a high order by explicitly canceling low‐order truncation error terms across finite volume faces and is applied in unstructured layers of the strand grid. The layers are then coupled together using a source term containing summation‐by‐parts finite differences in the strand direction. A preconditioner is employed to extend the method to low speed and incompressible flows. We further extend the method to turbulent flows with the Spalart–Allmaras model. Laminar flow test cases indicate improvements in accuracy and convergence using the high‐order preconditioned method, while turbulent body‐of‐revolution flow results show improvements in only some cases, perhaps because of dominant errors arising from the turbulence model itself. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An improved projection scheme applied to pseudospectral methods for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

An improved projection scheme is proposed and applied to pseudospectral collocation-Chebyshev approximation for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. It consists of introducing a correct predictor for the pressure, one which is consistent with a divergence-free velocity field at each time step. The main objective is to allow a time variation of the pressure gradient at boundaries. From different test problems, it is shown that this method, associated with a multistep second-order time scheme, provides a time accuracy of the same order as the temporal scheme used for the pressure, and also improves the prediction of the velocity slip. Moreover, it does not exhibit any numerical boundary layer mentioned as a drawback of fractional steps algorithm, and does not require the use of staggered grids for the velocity and the pressure. Its effectiveness is validated by comparison with a previous time-splitting algorithm proposed by Goda (K. Goda, J. Comput. Phys., 30 , 76–95 (1979)) and implemented by Gresho (P. Gresho, Int. j. numer. methods fluids, 11 , 587–620 (1990)) to finite element approximations. Steady and unsteady solutions for the regularized driven cavity and the rotating cavity submitted to throughflow are also used to assess the efficiency of this algorithm. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the efficiency of semi‐implicit and semi‐Lagrangian spectral methods for the calculation of incompressible flows

Classical semi‐implicit backward Euler/Adams–Bashforth time discretizations of the Navier–Stokes equations induce, for high‐Reynolds number flows, severe restrictions on the time step. Such restrictions can be relaxed by using semi‐Lagrangian schemes essentially based on splitting the full problem into an explicit transport step and an implicit diffusion step. In comparison with the standard characteristics method, the semi‐Lagrangian method has the advantage of being much less CPU time consuming where spectral methods are concerned. This paper is devoted to the comparison of the ‘semi‐implicit’ and ‘semi‐Lagrangian’ approaches, in terms of stability, accuracy and computational efficiency. Numerical results on the advection equation, Burger's equation and finally two‐ and three‐dimensional Navier–Stokes equations, using spectral elements or a collocation method, are provided. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bubble‐based stabilized finite element methods for time‐dependent convection–diffusion–reaction problems

In this paper, we propose a numerical algorithm for time‐dependent convection–diffusion–reaction problems and compare its performance with the well‐known numerical methods in the literature. Time discretization is performed by using fractional‐step θ‐scheme, while an economical form of the residual‐free bubble method is used for the space discretization. We compare the proposed algorithm with the classical stabilized finite element methods over several benchmark problems for a wide range of problem configurations. The effect of the order in the sequence of discretization (in time and in space) to the quality of the approximation is also investigated. Numerical experiments show the improvement through the proposed algorithm over the classical methods in either cases. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.