Investigation and application of point implicit Runge–Kutta methods to inviscid flow problems

We derive and investigate point implicit Runge–Kutta methods to significantly improve the convergence rate to approximate steady‐state solutions of inviscid flows. It turns out that the point implicit Runge–Kutta can be interpreted as a preconditioned explicit Runge–Kutta method, where the preconditioner arises naturally as local derivative of the residual function. Moreover, many preconditioners suggested in the literature so far are identified as special case of our general ansatz. Conditions will be formulated such that explicit Runge–Kutta methods with local time stepping are equivalent to point implicit methods. In numerical examples, we will demonstrate the improved convergence rates. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An implementation of the Spalart–Allmaras DES model in an implicit unstructured hybrid finite volume/element solver for incompressible turbulent flow

In this paper, we describe an implicit hybrid finite volume (FV)/element (FE) incompressible Navier–Stokes solver for turbulent flows based on the Spalart–Allmaras detached eddy simulation (SA‐DES). The hybrid FV/FE solver is based on the segregated pressure correction or projection method. The intermediate velocity field is first obtained by solving the original momentum equations with the matrix‐free implicit cell‐centered FV method. The pressure Poisson equation is solved by the node‐based Galerkin FE method for an auxiliary variable. The auxiliary variable is closely related to the real pressure and is used to update the velocity field and the pressure field. We store the velocity components at cell centers and the auxiliary variable at vertices, making the current solver a staggered‐mesh scheme. The SA‐DES turbulence equation is solved after the velocity and the pressure fields have been updated at the end of each time step. The same matrix‐free FV method as the one used for momentum equations is used to solve the turbulence equation. The turbulence equation provides the eddy viscosity, which is added to the molecular viscosity when solving the momentum equation. In our implementation, we focus on the accuracy, efficiency and robustness of the SA‐DES model in a hybrid flow solver. This paper will address important implementation issues for high‐Reynolds number flows where highly stretched elements are typically used. In addition, some aspects of implementing the SA‐DES model will be described to ensure the robustness of the turbulence model. Several numerical examples including a turbulent flow past a flat plate and a high‐Reynolds number flow around a high angle‐of‐attack NACA0015 airfoil will be presented to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of our current implementation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A novel fully implicit finite volume method applied to the lid‐driven cavity problem—Part I: High Reynolds number flow calculations

A novel implicit cell‐vertex finite volume method is described for the solution of the Navier–Stokes equations at high Reynolds numbers. The key idea is the elimination of the pressure term from the momentum equation by multiplying the momentum equation with the unit normal vector to a control volume boundary and integrating thereafter around this boundary. The resulting equations are expressed solely in terms of the velocity components. Thus any difficulties with pressure or vorticity boundary conditions are circumvented and the number of primary variables that need to be determined equals the number of space dimensions. The method is applied to both the steady and unsteady two‐dimensional lid‐driven cavity problem at Reynolds numbers up to 10000. Results are compared with those in the literature and show excellent agreement. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A methodology for high performance computation of fully inhomogeneous turbulent flows

A large‐eddy simulation methodology for high performance parallel computation of statistically fully inhomogeneous turbulent flows on structured grids is presented. Strategies and algorithms to improve the memory efficiency as well as the parallel performance of the subgrid‐scale model, the factored scheme, and the Poisson solver on shared‐memory parallel platforms are proposed and evaluated. A novel combination of one‐dimensional red–black/line Gauss–Seidel and two‐dimensional red–black/line Gauss–Seidel methods is shown to provide high efficiency and performance for multigrid relaxation of the Poisson equation. Parallel speedups are measured on various shared‐distributed memory systems. Validations of the code are performed in large‐eddy simulations of turbulent flows through a straight channel and a square duct. Results obtained from the present solver employing a Lagrangian dynamic subgrid‐scale model show good agreements with other available data. The capability of the code for more complex flows is assessed by performing a large‐eddy simulation of the tip‐leakage flow in a linear cascade. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Calculation of three‐dimensional turbulent flow with a finite volume multigrid method

A numerical method for the efficient calculation of three‐dimensional incompressible turbulent flow in curvilinear co‐ordinates is presented. The mathematical model consists of the Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes equations and the k–ε turbulence model. The numerical method is based on the SIMPLE pressure‐correction algorithm with finite volume discretization in curvilinear co‐ordinates. To accelerate the convergence of the solution method a full approximation scheme‐full multigrid (FAS‐FMG) method is utilized. The solution of the k–ε transport equations is embedded in the multigrid iteration. The improved convergence characteristic of the multigrid method is demonstrated by means of several calculations of three‐dimensional flow cases. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improved production implicit continuous‐fluid Eulerian method for compressible flow problems in Uintah

The implicit continuous‐fluid Eulerian (ICE) method is a successful and widely used semi‐implicit finite‐volume method that applies to flows that range from supersonic to subsonic regimes. The classical ICE method has been expanded to problems in multiphase flow, which spans a wide area of science and engineering. The ICE method is utilized by the Center for the Simulation of Accidental Fires and Explosions code Uintah written at the University of Utah to simulate explosions, fires and other fluid and fluid‐structure interaction phenomena. The ICE method used in Uintah (referred to here as Production ICE) is described in many papers by Kashiwa at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Harman at University of Utah. However, Production ICE does not perform as well as many current methods for compressible flow problems governed by the Euler equations. We show, via examples, that changing the nonconservation form of the solver in Production ICE to a conservation form improves the numerical solutions. In addition, the use of slope limiters makes it possible to suppress the nonphysical oscillations generated by the ICE method in conservation form. This new form of ICE is referred to as IMPICE, the IMproved Production ICE method. The accuracy of IMPICE for one‐dimensional Euler equations is investigated by using a number of test cases. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of a reflection-free DSM to turbulent flow and heat transfer in a square-sectioned U-bend

The paper reports the outcome of applying two differential second-moment (DSM) closures to resolve the complex three-dimensional motion that arises in turbulent flow in a square-sectioned duct passing around a 180°C bend. The initial results showed (in accord with a number of recent studies) that, with the same underlying closure hypotheses, a DSM scheme produces better agreement with experiment than does the corresponding algebraic second-moment (ASM) treatment, although the differences were acceptably small. Thereafter, applications are reported for a new type of DSM that employs no wall-reflection terms. This leads to markedly better predictions of the turbulence field and thus of the wall heat transfer than the conventionally adopted version.     

Analysis of a meshless solver for high Reynolds number flow

In this paper, the extension of an upwind least‐square based meshless solver to high Reynolds number flow is explored, and the properties of the meshless solver are analyzed both theoretically and numerically. Existing works have verified the meshless solver mostly with inviscid flows and low Reynolds number flows, and in this work, we are interested in the behavior of the meshless solver for high Reynolds number flow, especially in the near‐wall region. With both theoretical and numerical analysis, the effects of two parameters on the meshless solver are identified. The first one is the misalignment effect caused by the significantly skewed supporting points, and it is found that the meshless solver still yields accurate prediction. It is a very interesting property and is opposite to the median‐dual control volume based vertex‐centered finite volume method, which is known to give degraded result with stretched triangular/tetrahedral cells in the near‐wall region. The second parameter is the curvature, and according to theoretical analysis, it is found in the region with both large aspect ratio and curvature, and the streamwise residual is less affected; however, the wall‐normal counterpart suffers from accuracy degradation. In this paper, an improved method that uses a meshless solver for the streamwise residual and finite difference for wall‐normal residual is developed. This method is proved to be less sensitive to the curvature and provides improved accuracy. This work presents an understanding of the meshless solver for high Reynolds number flow computation, and the analysis in this paper is verified with a series of numerical experiments. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Implicit schemes with large time step for non‐linear equations: application to river flow hydraulics

In this work, first‐order upwind implicit schemes are considered. The traditional tridiagonal scheme is rewritten as a sum of two bidiagonal schemes in order to produce a simpler method better suited for unsteady transcritical flows. On the other hand, the origin of the instabilities associated to the use of upwind implicit methods for shock propagations is identified and a new stability condition for non‐linear problems is proposed. This modification produces a robust, simple and accurate upwind semi‐explicit scheme suitable for discontinuous flows with high Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy (CFL) numbers. The discretization at the boundaries is based on the condition of global mass conservation thus enabling a fully conservative solution for all kind of boundary conditions. The performance of the proposed technique will be shown in the solution of the inviscid Burgers' equation, in an ideal dambreak test case, in some steady open channel flow test cases with analytical solution and in a realistic flood routing problem, where stable and accurate solutions will be presented using CFL values up to 100. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of the finite point method to high‐Reynolds number compressible flow problems

In this work, the finite point method is applied to the solution of high‐Reynolds compressible viscous flows. The aim is to explore this important field of applications focusing on two main aspects: the easiness and automation of the meshless discretization of viscous layers and the construction of a robust numerical approximation in the highly stretched clouds of points resulting in such domain areas. The flow solution scheme adopts an upwind‐biased scheme to solve the averaged Navier–Stokes equations in conjunction with an algebraic turbulence model. The numerical applications presented involve different attached boundary layer flows and are intended to show the performance of the numerical technique. The results obtained are satisfactory and indicative of the possibilities to extend the present meshless technique to more complex flow problems. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Validation of a novel very large eddy simulation method for simulation of turbulent separated flow

The paper describes the validation of a newly developed very LES (VLES) method for the simulation of turbulent separated flow. The new VLES method is a unified simulation approach that can change seamlessly from Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes to DNS depending on the numerical resolution. Four complex test cases are selected to validate the performance of the new method, that is, the flow past a square cylinder at Re = 3000 confined in a channel (with a blockage ratio of 20%), the turbulent flow over a circular cylinder at Re = 3900 as well as Re = 140,000, and a turbulent backward‐facing step flow with a thick incoming boundary layer at Re = 40,000. The simulation results are compared with available experimental, LES, and detached eddy simulation‐type results. The new VLES model performs well overall, and the predictions are satisfactory compared with previous experimental and numerical results. It is observed that the new VLES method is quite efficient for the turbulent flow simulations; that is, good predictions can be obtained using a quite coarse mesh compared with the previous LES method. Discussions of the implementation of the present VLES modeling are also conducted on the basis of the simulations of turbulent channel flow up to high Reynolds number of Re_τ = 4000. The efficiency of the present VLES modeling is also observed in the channel flow simulation. From a practical point of view, this new method has considerable potential for more complex turbulent flow simulations at relative high Reynolds numbers. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Visualization of flow structures in a turbulent boundary layer using a new technique

In this paper, an experimental investigation on the flow structures in a turbulent boundary layer employing a special laser light sheet-Hydrogen bubble flow visualization technique is described. It is observed that the high/low speed streaks are directly related to the hairpin or horseshoe-like vortices. This observation can give a better understanding of the physical mechanism in the turbulent boundary layer. Fluid Mechanic Institute, BUAA     

An algebraic variational multiscale–multigrid method for large‐eddy simulation of turbulent pulsatile flows in complex geometries with detailed insight into pulmonary airway flow

The algebraic variational multiscale–multigrid method, an advanced computational approach recently proposed for large‐eddy simulation of turbulent flow, is further developed in this study for turbulent flow simulations in complex geometries. In particular, it is applied to the complex case of pulsatile turbulent flow dynamics of the upper and lower pulmonary airways up to generation 7 and carefully investigated for this important application. Among other things, the results obtained with the proposed method are compared with the results obtained with a rather traditional stabilized finite element method. As opposed to previous large‐eddy simulations of pulmonary airways, we consider a pulsatile inflow condition, allowing the development of turbulence over a pulse cycle to be investigated, which obviously makes these results more physiologically realistic. Our results suggest that turbulent effects in the bronchial airways are rather weak and can completely decay as early as the third generation, depending on geometry and flow distribution. Both methods utilized in this study are able to adequately capture all flow stages from laminar via transitional to turbulent regimes without any modifications. However, the algebraic variational multiscale–multigrid method provides superior results as soon as the flow enters the most challenging, turbulent flow regime. Furthermore, the robustness of the scale‐separation approach based on plain aggregation algebraic multigrid inherent to the algebraic variational multiscale–multigrid method is demonstrated for the present complex geometry. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A third‐order implicit discontinuous Galerkin method based on a Hermite WENO reconstruction for time‐accurate solution of the compressible Navier–Stokes equations

A space and time third‐order discontinuous Galerkin method based on a Hermite weighted essentially non‐oscillatory reconstruction is presented for the unsteady compressible Euler and Navier–Stokes equations. At each time step, a lower‐upper symmetric Gauss–Seidel preconditioned generalized minimal residual solver is used to solve the systems of linear equations arising from an explicit first stage, single diagonal coefficient, diagonally implicit Runge–Kutta time integration scheme. The performance of the developed method is assessed through a variety of unsteady flow problems. Numerical results indicate that this method is able to deliver the designed third‐order accuracy of convergence in both space and time, while requiring remarkably less storage than the standard third‐order discontinous Galerkin methods, and less computing time than the lower‐order discontinous Galerkin methods to achieve the same level of temporal accuracy for computing unsteady flow problems. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An analysis of overlapping Schwarz method for a weakly coupled system of singularly perturbed convection-diffusion equations

In this article, we have developed an overlapping Schwarz method for a weakly coupled system of convection-diffusion equations. The method splits the original domain into two overlapping subdomains. A hybrid difference scheme is proposed in which on the boundary layer region, we use the central finite difference scheme on a uniform mesh, whereas on the nonlayer region, we use the mid-point difference scheme on a uniform mesh. It is shown that the numerical approximations converge in the maximum norm to the exact solution. We have proved that, when appropriate subdomains are used, the method produces almost second-order convergence. Furthermore, it is shown that two iterations are sufficient to achieve the expected accuracy. Numerical examples are presented to support the theoretical results. The main advantage of this method used with the proposed scheme is that it reduces iteration counts very much and easily identifies in which iteration the Schwarz iterate terminates.     

Verification of a mixed high‐order accurate DNS code for laminar turbulent transition by the method of manufactured solutions

This paper presents results on a verification test of a Direct Numerical Simulation code of mixed high‐order of accuracy using the method of manufactured solutions (MMS). This test is based on the formulation of an analytical solution for the Navier–Stokes equations modified by the addition of a source term. The present numerical code was aimed at simulating the temporal evolution of instability waves in a plane Poiseuille flow. The governing equations were solved in a vorticity–velocity formulation for a two‐dimensional incompressible flow. The code employed two different numerical schemes. One used mixed high‐order compact and non‐compact finite‐differences from fourth‐order to sixth‐order of accuracy. The other scheme used spectral methods instead of finite‐difference methods for the streamwise direction, which was periodic. In the present test, particular attention was paid to the boundary conditions of the physical problem of interest. Indeed, the verification procedure using MMS can be more demanding than the often used comparison with Linear Stability Theory. That is particularly because in the latter test no attention is paid to the nonlinear terms. For the present verification test, it was possible to manufacture an analytical solution that reproduced some aspects of an instability wave in a nonlinear stage. Although the results of the verification by MMS for this mixed‐order numerical scheme had to be interpreted with care, the test was very useful as it gave confidence that the code was free of programming errors. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of a three-dimensional solver based on the local domain-free discretization and immersed boundary method and its application for incompressible flow problems

Recently, the author and two other coauthors have proposed a two-dimensional hybrid local domain-free discretization and immersed boundary method (LDFD-IBM), which can be used to solve the flow problem with complex geometries. In this paper, the LDFD-IBM is extended to solve a three-dimensional unsteady incompressible flow with the complex computational domain. The technical issues related to the implementation of the LDFD-IBM in three-dimensional problems are discussed in detail, particularly for the discretization of Navier-Stokes equations, mesh strategies for a three-dimensional flow, and the fast algorithm on the identification of the status of mesh nodes (ie, to identify if the mesh node is located in the solid domain, in the fluid domain, or near the immersed boundary). Numerical tests show that the LDFD-IBM can accurately solve three-dimensional incompressible problems with ease.