Application of the VORTFIND algorithm for the identification of vortical flow features around complex three‐dimensional geometries

Accurate prediction of the hydrodynamic forces and moments acting on a manoeuvring marine vehicle using Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes simulations requires sufficient mesh resolution to capture off‐body vortical structures. Because the path of these structures is not known a priori, a vortex identification and capture strategy is required alongside an iterative mesh adaption process. An improved version of the VORTFIND algorithm, which can identify multiple vortices of variable strength and rotational direction using a K‐means algorithm is described. The algorithm is applied to velocity fields generated from Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes simulations to increase the mesh resolution in the vortex core region, ensuring sufficient mesh density to capture the downstream propagation of the vortex for a submarine hull at drift and ship propeller–rudder interaction.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On numerical errors and turbulence modeling in tip vortex flow prediction

The accuracy of tip vortex flow prediction in the near‐field region is investigated numerically by attempting to quantify the shortcomings of the turbulence models and the flow solver. In particular, some turbulence models can produce a ‘numerical diffusion’ that artificially smears the vortex core. Low‐order finite differencing techniques of the convective and pressure terms of the Navier–Stokes equations and inadequate grid density and distribution can also produce the same adverse effect. The flow over a wing and the near‐wake with the wind tunnel walls included was simulated using 2.5 million grid points. Two subset problems, one using a steady, three‐dimensional analytical vortex, and the other, a vortex obtained from experiment and propagated downstream, were also devised in order to make the study of vortex preservation more tractable. The method of artificial compressibility is used to solve the steady, three‐dimensional, incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. Two one‐equation turbulence models (Baldwin–Barth and Spalart–Allmaras turbulence models), have been used with the production term modified to account for the stabilizing effect of the nearly solid body rotation in the vortex core. Finally, a comparison between the computed results and experiment is presented. Published in 1999 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fourth‐order accurate compact‐difference discretization method for Helmholtz and incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

A fourth‐order accurate solution method for the three‐dimensional Helmholtz equations is described that is based on a compact finite‐difference stencil for the Laplace operator. Similar discretization methods for the Poisson equation have been presented by various researchers for Dirichlet boundary conditions. Here, the complicated issue of imposing Neumann boundary conditions is described in detail. The method is then applied to model Helmholtz problems to verify the accuracy of the discretization method. The implementation of the solution method is also described. The Helmholtz solver is used as the basis for a fourth‐order accurate solver for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. Numerical results obtained with this Navier–Stokes solver for the temporal evolution of a three‐dimensional instability in a counter‐rotating vortex pair are discussed. The time‐accurate Navier–Stokes simulations show the resolving properties of the developed discretization method and the correct prediction of the initial growth rate of the three‐dimensional instability in the vortex pair. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finite element and implicit Runge–Kutta implementation of an acoustics–convection upstream resolution algorithm for the time‐dependent two‐dimensional Euler equations

The second of a two‐paper series, this paper details a solver for the characteristics‐bias system from the acoustics–convection upstream resolution algorithm for the Euler and Navier–Stokes equations. An integral formulation leads to several surface integrals that allow effective enforcement of boundary conditions. Also presented is a new multi‐dimensional procedure to enforce a pressure boundary condition at a subsonic outlet, a procedure that remains accurate and stable. A classical finite element Galerkin discretization of the integral formulation on any prescribed grid directly yields an optimal discretely conservative upstream approximation for the Euler and Navier–Stokes equations, an approximation that remains multi‐dimensional independently of the orientation of the reference axes and computational cells. The time‐dependent discrete equations are then integrated in time via an implicit Runge–Kutta procedure that in this paper is proven to remain absolutely non‐linearly stable for the spatially‐discrete Euler and Navier–Stokes equations and shown to converge rapidly to steady states, with maximum Courant number exceeding 100 for the linearized version. Even on relatively coarse grids, the acoustics–convection upstream resolution algorithm generates essentially non‐oscillatory solutions for subsonic, transonic and supersonic flows, encompassing oblique‐ and interacting‐shock fields that converge within 40 time steps and reflect reference exact solutions. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An inviscid/viscous coupling approach for vortex flow field calculations

A new computational approach is developed for the analysis of vortex-dominated flow fields around highly swept wings at high angles of attack. In this approach an inviscid Euler technology is coupled with viscous models, similar to inviscid/boundary layer coupling. The viscous nature of the vortex core is represented by an algebraic model derived from the Navier–Stokes equations. The approach also accounts for the effects of the viscous shear layer near a wing surface through a modified surface boundary condition. The inviscid/viscous coupling consistently provides improved predictions of leading edge separation, vortex bursting and secondary vortex formation at relatively low computational cost. Results for several cases are compared with wind tunnel tests and other Euler and Navier-Stokes solutions.     

Analysis of iterative methods for the viscous/inviscid coupled problem via a spectral element approximation

Based on a new global variational formulation, a spectral element approximation of the incompressible Navier–Stokes/Euler coupled problem gives rise to a global discrete saddle problem. The classical Uzawa algorithm decouples the original saddle problem into two positive definite symmetric systems. Iterative solutions of such systems are feasible and attractive for large problems. It is shown that, provided an appropriate pre‐conditioner is chosen for the pressure system, the nested conjugate gradient methods can be applied to obtain rapid convergence rates. Detailed numerical examples are given to prove the quality of the pre‐conditioner. Thanks to the rapid iterative convergence, the global Uzawa algorithm takes advantage of this as compared with the classical iteration by sub‐domain procedures. Furthermore, a generalization of the pre‐conditioned iterative algorithm to flow simulation is carried out. Comparisons of computational complexity between the Navier–Stokes/Euler coupled solution and the full Navier–Stokes solution are made. It is shown that the gain obtained by using the Navier–Stokes/Euler coupled solution is generally considerable. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reduction in drag and vortex shedding frequency through porous sheath around a circular cylinder

A numerical study on the laminar vortex shedding and wake flow due to a porous‐wrapped solid circular cylinder has been made in this paper. The cylinder is horizontally placed, and is subjected to a uniform cross flow. The aim is to control the vortex shedding and drag force through a thin porous wrapper around a solid cylinder. The flow field is investigated for a wide range of Reynolds number in the laminar regime. The flow in the porous zone is governed by the Darcy–Brinkman–Forchheimer extended model and the Navier–Stokes equations in the fluid region. A control volume approach is adopted for computation of the governing equations along with a second‐order upwind scheme, which is used to discretize the convective terms inside the fluid region. The inclusion of a thin porous wrapper produces a significant reduction in drag and damps the oscillation compared with a solid cylinder. Dependence of Strouhal number and drag coefficient on porous layer thickness at different Reynolds number is analyzed. The dependence of Strouhal number and drag on the permeability of the medium is also examined. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spectral p‐multigrid discontinuous Galerkin solution of the Navier–Stokes equations

Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods are very well suited for the construction of very high‐order approximations of the Euler and Navier–Stokes equations on unstructured and possibly nonconforming grids, but are rather demanding in terms of computational resources. In order to improve the computational efficiency of this class of methods, a high‐order spectral element DG approximation of the Navier–Stokes equations coupled with a p‐multigrid solution strategy based on a semi‐implicit Runge–Kutta smoother is considered here. The effectiveness of the proposed approach in the solution of compressible shockless flow problems is demonstrated on 2D inviscid and viscous test cases by comparison with both a p‐multigrid scheme with non‐spectral elements and a spectral element DG approach with an implicit time integration scheme. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive Euler simulations of airfoil–vortex interaction

A grid redistribution method is used together with an improved spatially third‐order accurate Euler solver to improve the accuracy of direct Euler simulations of airfoil–vortex interaction. The presented numerical results of two airfoil–vortex interaction cases indicate that with combination of the two methods, the numerical diffusion of vorticity inherent in the direct Euler simulations is drastically reduced without increasing the number of grid points. With some extra works due to grid redistribution, the predicted vortex structure is well preserved after a long convection and much sharper acoustic wave front resulting from airfoil–vortex interaction is captured. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An aspect ratio agglomeration multigrid for unstructured grids

A robust aspect ratio‐based agglomeration algorithm to generate high quality of coarse grids for unstructured and hybrid grids is proposed in this paper. The algorithm focuses on multigrid techniques for the numerical solution of Euler and Navier–Stokes equations, which conform to cell‐centered finite volume special discretization scheme, combines vertex‐based isotropic agglomeration and cell‐based directional agglomeration to yield large increases in convergence rates. Aspect ratio is used as fusing weight to capture the degree of cell convexity and give an indication of cell stretching. Agglomeration front queue is established to propagate inward from the boundaries, which stores isotropic vertex and also high‐stretched cell marked with different flag according to aspect ratio. We conduct the present method to solve Euler and Navier–Stokes equations on unstructured and hybrid grids and compare the results with single grid as well as MGridGen, which shows that the present method is efficient in reducing computational time for large‐scale system equations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The implementation of an aeronautical CFD flow code onto distributed memory parallel systems

The parallelization of an industrially important in‐house computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code for calculating the airflow over complex aircraft configurations using the Euler or Navier–Stokes equations is presented. The code discussed is the flow solver module of the SAUNA CFD suite. This suite uses a novel grid system that may include block‐structured hexahedral or pyramidal grids, unstructured tetrahedral grids or a hybrid combination of both. To assist in the rapid convergence to a solution, a number of convergence acceleration techniques are employed including implicit residual smoothing and a multigrid full approximation storage scheme (FAS). Key features of the parallelization approach are the use of domain decomposition and encapsulated message passing to enable the execution in parallel using a single programme multiple data (SPMD) paradigm. In the case where a hybrid grid is used, a unified grid partitioning scheme is employed to define the decomposition of the mesh. The parallel code has been tested using both structured and hybrid grids on a number of different distributed memory parallel systems and is now routinely used to perform industrial scale aeronautical simulations. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A combined vortex and panel method for numerical simulations of viscous flows: a comparative study of a vortex particle method and a finite volume method

This paper describes and compares two vorticity‐based integral approaches for the solution of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. Either a Lagrangian vortex particle method or an Eulerian finite volume scheme is implemented to solve the vorticity transport equation with a vorticity boundary condition. The Biot–Savart integral is used to compute the velocity field from a vorticity distribution over a fluid domain. The vorticity boundary condition is improved by the use of an iteration scheme connected with the well‐established panel method. In the early stages of development of flows around an impulsively started circular cylinder, and past an impulsively started foil with varying angles of attack, the computational results obtained by the Lagrangian vortex method are compared with those obtained by the Eulerian finite volume method. The comparison is performed separately for the pressure fields as well. The results obtained by the two methods are in good agreement, and give a better understanding of the vorticity‐based methods. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation of viscous water column collapse using adapting hierarchical grids

An adaptive hierarchical grid‐based method for predicting complex free surface flows is used to simulate collapse of a water column. Adapting quadtree grids are combined with a high‐resolution interface‐capturing approach and pressure‐based coupling of the Navier–Stokes equations. The Navier–Stokes flow solution scheme is verified for simulation of flow in a lid‐driven cavity at Re=1000. Two approaches to the coupling of the Navier–Stokes equations are investigated as are alternative face velocity and hanging node interpolations. Collapse of a water column as well as collapse of a water column and its subsequent interaction with an obstacle are simulated. The calculations are made on uniform and adapting quadtree grids, and the accuracy of the quadtree calculations is shown to be the same as those made on the equivalent uniform grids. Results are in excellent agreement with experimental and other numerical data. A sharp interface is maintained at the free surface. The new adapting quadtree‐based method achieves a considerable saving in the size of the computational grid and CPU time in comparison with calculations made on equivalent uniform grids. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

NUMERICAL STUDY OF PARTICLE DISTRIBUTION IN WAKE OF LIQUID-PARTICLE FLOWS PAST A CIRCULAR CYLINDER USING DISCRETE VORTEX METHOD

Particle-laden water flows past a circular cylinder were numerically investigated. The discrete vortex method (DVM) was employed to evaluate the unsteady water flow fields and a Lagrangian approach was applied for tracking individual solid particles. A dispersion function was defined to represent the dispersion scale of the particle. The wake vortex patterns, the distributions and the time series of dispersion functions of particles with different Stokes numbers were obtained. Numerical results show that the particle distribution in the wake of the circular cylinder is closely related to the particle's Stokes number and the structure of wake vortices: (1) the intermediate sized particles with Stokes numbers, St, of 0.25, 1.0 and 4.0 can not enter the vortex cores and concentrate near the peripheries of the vortex structures, (2) in the circular cylinder wake, the dispersion intensity of particles decreases as St is increased from 0.25 to 4.0.     

Numerical simulation of flapping‐wing insect hovering flight at unsteady flow

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was conducted to study the unsteady aerodynamics of a virtual flying bumblebee during hovering flight. The integrated geometry of bumblebee was established to define the shape of a three‐dimensional virtual bumblebee model with beating its wings, accurately mimicking the three‐dimensional movements of wings during hovering flight. The kinematics data of wings documented from the measurement to the bumblebee in normal hovering flight aided by the high‐speed video. The Navier–Stokes equations are solved numerically. The solution provides the flow and pressure fields, from which the aerodynamic forces and vorticity wake structure are obtained. Insights into the unsteady aerodynamic force generation process are gained from the force and flow‐structure information. The CFD analysis has established an overall understanding of the viscous and unsteady flow around the virtual flying bumblebee and of the time course of instantaneous force production, which reveals that hovering flight is dominated by the unsteady aerodynamics of both the instantaneous dynamics and also the past history of the wing. A coherent leading‐edge vortex with axial flow and the attached wingtip vortex and trailing edge vortex were detected. The leading edge vortex, wing tip vortex and trailing edge vortex, which caused by the pressure difference between the upper and the lower surface of wings. The axial flow, which include the spanwise flow and chordwise flow, is derived from the spanwise pressure gradient and chordwise pressure gradient, will stabilize the vortex and gives it a characteristic spiral conical shape. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Third‐order Cartesian overset mesh adaptation method for solving steady compressible flows

A third‐order mesh generation and adaptation method is presented for solving the steady compressible Euler equations. For interior points, a third‐order scheme is used on Cartesian and curvilinear meshes. Concerning the mesh adaptation, the method of Meakin is also extended to third order. The accuracy of the new overset mesh adaptation method is demonstrated by a grid convergence study for 2‐D inviscid model problems and results are compared with a second‐order method. Finally, the method is applied to the computation of an inviscid 3‐D flow around a hovering blade of the ONERA 7A helicopter rotor exhibiting an improvement in the wake capture. With a 7 million point mesh, the tip vortex can be followed for more than three rotor revolutions with the third‐order method. The CPU time needed for this calculation is only 3% higher than with a conventional second‐order method. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A simple sliding‐mesh interface procedure and its application to the CFD simulation of a tidal‐stream turbine

An effective way of using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate flow about a rotating device—for example, a wind or marine turbine—is to embed a rotating region of cells inside a larger, stationary domain, with a sliding interface between. This paper describes a simple but effective method for implementing this as an internal Dirichlet boundary condition, with interfacial values obtained by interpolation from halo nodes. The method is tested in two finite‐volume codes: one using block‐structured meshes and the other unstructured meshes. Validation is performed for flow around simple, isolated, rotating shapes (cylinder, sphere and cube), comparing, where possible, with experiment and the alternative CFD approach of fixed grid with moving walls. Flow variables are shown to vary smoothly across the sliding interface. Simulations of a tidal‐stream turbine, including both rotor and support, are then performed and compared with towing‐tank experiments. Comparison between CFD and experiment is made for thrust and power coefficients as a function of tip‐speed ratio (TSR) using Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes turbulence models and large‐eddy simulation (LES). Performance of most models is good near the optimal TSR, but simulations underestimate mean thrust and power coefficients in off‐design conditions, with the standard k– ? turbulence model performing noticeably worse than shear stress transport k– ω and Reynolds‐stress‐transport closures. LES gave good predictions of mean load coefficients and vital information about wake structures but at substantial computational cost. Grid‐sensitivity studies suggest that Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes models give acceptable predictions of mean power and thrust coefficients on a single device using a mesh of about 4 million cells. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An unsteady multiblock multigrid scheme for lifting forward flight rotor simulation

Numerical simulation of multi‐bladed lifting rotors in forward flight is considered. The flow‐solver presented is multiblock and unsteady, which is essential for forward flight, and also includes multigrid acceleration to reduce run‐times. A structured multiblock grid generator specifically for rotor blades has also been developed and is presented here. Previous work has shown that hovering lifting rotor flows are particularly expensive to simulate, since the capture of the vortical wake below the disc requires a long numerical integration time; more than 20 revolutions for an unsteady simulation, or more than 40000 time‐steps for a single grid steady simulation. It is demonstrated here that only two or three revolutions are required to obtain a converged solution for forward flight, since the wake is swept downstream. This requires less than 1.5 × the run‐time of a steady hovering simulation, for the same grid density around each blade, even though an unsteady simulation is required and the complete disk must be solved rather than one blade as in hover. It is demonstrated that very fine meshes are required to capture the unsteady tip vortex motion, and the effects on blade loading of blade‐vortex interaction and rotor shaft inclination are also considered. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Acceleration on stretched meshes with line-implicit LU-SGS in parallel implementation

The implicit lower–upper symmetric Gauss–Seidel (LU-SGS) solver is combined with the line-implicit technique to improve convergence on the very anisotropic grids necessary for resolving the boundary layers. The computational fluid dynamics code used is Edge, a Navier–Stokes flow solver for unstructured grids based on a dual grid and edge-based formulation. Multigrid acceleration is applied with the intention to accelerate the convergence to steady state. LU-SGS works in parallel and gives better linear scaling with respect to the number of processors, than the explicit scheme. The ordering techniques investigated have shown that node numbering does influence the convergence and that the orderings from Delaunay and advancing front generation were among the best tested. 2D Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes computations have clearly shown the strong efficiency of our novel approach line-implicit LU-SGS which is four times faster than implicit LU-SGS and line-implicit Runge–Kutta. Implicit LU-SGS for Euler and line-implicit LU-SGS for Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes are at least twice faster than explicit and line-implicit Runge–Kutta, respectively, for 2D and 3D cases. For 3D Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes, multigrid did not accelerate the convergence and therefore may not be needed.     

A viscous vortex particle method for deforming bodies with application to biolocomotion

Bio‐inspired mechanics of locomotion generally consist of the interaction of flexible structures with the surrounding fluid to generate propulsive forces. In this work, we extend, for the first time, the viscous vortex particle method (VVPM) to continuously deforming two‐dimensional bodies. The VVPM is a high‐fidelity Navier–Stokes computational method that captures the fluid motion through evolution of vorticity‐bearing computational particles. The kinematics of the deforming body surface are accounted for via a surface integral in the Biot–Savart velocity. The spurious slip velocity in each time step is removed by computing an equivalent vortex sheet and allowing it to flux to adjacent particles; hence, no‐slip boundary conditions are enforced. Particles of both uniform and variable size are utilized, and their relative merits are considered. The placement of this method in the larger class of immersed boundary methods is explored. Validation of the method is carried out on the problem of a periodically deforming circular cylinder immersed in a stagnant fluid, for which an analytical solution exists when the deformations are small. We show that the computed vorticity and velocity of this motion are both in excellent agreement with the analytical solution. Finally, we explore the fluid dynamics of a simple fish‐like shape undergoing undulatory motion when immersed in a uniform free stream, to demonstrate the application of the method to investigations of biomorphic locomotion. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.