Reynolds number, thickness and camber effects on flapping airfoil propulsion

The effect of varying airfoil thickness and camber on plunging and combined pitching and plunging airfoil propulsion at Reynolds number Re=200, 2000, 20 000 and 2×10⁶ was studied by numerical simulations for fully laminar and fully turbulent flow regimes. The thickness study was performed on 2-D NACA symmetric airfoils with 6-50% thick sections undergoing pure plunging motion at reduced frequency k=2 and amplitudes h=0.25 and 0.5, and for combined pitching and plunging motion at k=2, h=0.5, phase ?=90°, pitch angle θ_o=15° and 30° and the pitch axis was located at 1/3 of chord from leading edge. At Re=200 for motions where positive thrust is generated, thin airfoils outperform thick airfoils. At higher Re significant gains could be achieved both in thrust generation and propulsive efficiency by using a thicker airfoil section for plunging and combined motion with low pitch amplitude. The camber study was performed on 2-D NACA airfoils with varying camber locations undergoing pure plunging motion at k=2, h=0.5 and Re=20 000. Little variation in thrust performance was found with camber. The underlying physics behind the alteration in propulsive performance between low and high Reynolds numbers has been explored by comparing viscous Navier-Stokes and inviscid panel method results. The role of leading edge vortices was found to be key to the observed performance variation.     

A spectral solver for the Navier–Stokes equations in the velocity–vorticity formulation

A numerical algorithm intended for the study of flows in a cylindrical container under laminar flow conditions is proposed. High resolution of the flow field, governed by the Navier–Stokes equations in velocity–vorticity formulation relative to a cylindrical frame of reference, is achieved through spatial discretisation by means of the spectral method. This method is based on a Fourier expansion in the azimuthal direction and an expansion in Chebyshev polynomials in the (nonperiodic) radial and axial directions. Several regularity constraints are used to take care of the coordinate singularity. These constraints are implemented, together with the boundary conditions at the top, bottom and mantle of the cylinder, via the tau method. The a priori unknown boundary values of the vorticity are evaluated by means of the influence-matrix technique. The compatibility between the mathematical and numerical formulation of the Navier–Stokes equations is established through a tau-correction procedure. The resolved flow field exhibits high-precision satisfaction of the incompressibility constraints for velocity and vorticity and the definition of the vorticity. The performance of the solver is illustrated by resolution of several configurations representative of generic three-dimensional laminar flows.     

A Fully Coupled Solver for Incompressible Navier–Stokes Equations using Operator Splitting

The steady incompressible Navier–Stokes equations are coupled by a Poisson equation for the pressure from which the continuity equation is subtracted. The equivalence to the original N–S problem is proved. Fictitious time is added and vectorial operator-splitting is employed leaving the system coupled at each fractional-time step which allows satisfaction of the boundary conditions without introducing artificial conditions for the pressure. Conservative second-order approximations for the convective terms are employed on a staggered grid. The splitting algorithm for the 3D case is verified through an analytic solution test. The stability of the method at high values of Reynolds number is illustrated by accurate numerical solutions for the flow in a lid-driven rectangular cavity with aspect ratio 1 and 2, as well as for the flow after a back-facing step.     

Higher order spectral/hp finite element models of the Navier–Stokes equations

In this paper, we present higher order least-squares finite element formulations for viscous, incompressible, isothermal Navier–Stokes equations using spectral/hp basis functions. The second-order Navier–Stokes equations are recast as first-order system of equations using stresses as auxiliary variables. Both steady-state and transient problems are considered. For a better coupling of pressure and velocity, especially in transient flows, an iterative penalisation strategy is employed. The outflow-type boundary conditions are applied in a weak sense through the least-squares functional. The formulation is verified by solving various benchmark problems like the lid-driven cavity, backward-facing step and flow over cylinder problems using direct serial solver UMFPACK.     

A fictitious domain finite element method for simulations of fluid–structure interactions: The Navier–Stokes equations coupled with a moving solid

The paper extends a stabilized fictitious domain finite element method initially developed for the Stokes problem to the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations coupled with a moving solid. This method presents the advantage to predict an optimal approximation of the normal stress tensor at the interface. The dynamics of the solid is governed by Newton׳s laws and the interface between the fluid and the structure is materialized by a level-set which cuts the elements of the mesh. An algorithm is proposed in order to treat the time evolution of the geometry and numerical results are presented on a classical benchmark of the motion of a disk falling in a channel.     

推导Navier–Stokes方程用的Stokes的三条假设

Navier–Stokes方程是流体力学中的基本方程。英国人George G Stokes在1845年从连续介质力学的观点推导这个方程时用了3个假设。这篇文章提供了一些Augustin L Cauchy在1827年和1828年的两份工作中的信息,表明3个假设所涉及的概念在Cauchy的工作中已有。

     

A space-time lower–upper symmetric Gauss–Seidel scheme for the time-spectral method

The time-spectral method (TSM) offers the advantage of increased order of accuracy compared to methods using finite-difference in time for periodic unsteady flow problems. Explicit Runge–Kutta pseudo-time marching and implicit schemes have been developed to solve iteratively the space-time coupled nonlinear equations resulting from TSM. Convergence of the explicit schemes is slow because of the stringent time-step limit. Many implicit methods have been developed for TSM. Their computational efficiency is, however, still limited in practice because of delayed implicit temporal coupling, multiple iterative loops, costly matrix operations, or lack of strong diagonal dominance of the implicit operator matrix. To overcome these shortcomings, an efficient space-time lower–upper symmetric Gauss–Seidel (ST-LU-SGS) implicit scheme with multigrid acceleration is presented. In this scheme, the implicit temporal coupling term is split as one additional dimension of space in the LU-SGS sweeps. To improve numerical stability for periodic flows with high frequency, a modification to the ST-LU-SGS scheme is proposed. Numerical results show that fast convergence is achieved using large or even infinite Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy (CFL) numbers for unsteady flow problems with moderately high frequency and with the use of moderately high numbers of time intervals. The ST-LU-SGS implicit scheme is also found to work well in calculating periodic flow problems where the frequency is not known a priori and needed to be determined by using a combined Fourier analysis and gradient-based search algorithm.     

Short Communication: Application of WENO (Weighted Essentially Non-oscillatory) Approach to Navier–Stokes Computations

The direct implementation of the essentially non-oscillatory schemes for flow simulation over complex geometries sometimes results in insufficiently robust numerical algorithms. In order to overcome this difficulty, it is suggested to use the weighted essentially non-oscillatory approach for multidimensional Navier–Stokes computations. The results indicate a significant improvement in accuracy and robustness, especially for low Mach and high supersonic flows.     

Some preliminary observations on a defect Navier–Stokes system

Some implications of the simplest accounting of defects of compatibility in the velocity field on the structure of the classical Navier–Stokes equations are explored, leading to connections between classical elasticity, the elastic theory of defects, plasticity theory, and classical fluid mechanics.     

Accurate iteration-free mixed-stabilised formulation for laminar incompressible Navier–Stokes: Applications to fluid–structure interaction

Stabilised mixed velocity–pressure formulations are one of the widely-used finite element schemes for computing the numerical solutions of laminar incompressible Navier–Stokes. In these formulations, the Newton–Raphson scheme is employed to solve the nonlinearity in the convection term. One fundamental issue with this approach is the computational cost incurred in the Newton–Raphson iterations at every load/time step. In this paper, we present an iteration-free mixed finite element formulation for incompressible Navier–Stokes that preserves second-order temporal accuracy of the generalised-alpha and related schemes for both velocity and pressure fields. First, we demonstrate the second-order temporal accuracy using numerical convergence studies for an example with a manufactured solution. Later, we assess the accuracy and the computational benefits of the proposed scheme by studying the benchmark example of flow past a fixed circular cylinder. Towards showcasing the applicability of the proposed technique in a wider context, the inf–sup stable P2–P1 pair for the formulation without stabilisation is also considered. Finally, the resulting benefits of using the proposed scheme for fluid–structure interaction problems are illustrated using two benchmark examples in fluid-flexible structure interaction.