Additive schwarz methods for indefinite hypersingular integral equations in R3 - the p-version

We propose and analyze preconditioners for the p-version of the boundary element method in three dimensions. We consider indefinite hypersingular integral equations on surfaces and use quadrilateral elements for the boundary discretization. We use the GMRES method as iterative solver for the linear systems and prove for an overlapping additive Schwarz method that the number of iterations is bounded. This bound is independent of the polynomial degree of the ansatz functions and of the size of the underlying mesh. For a modified diagonal scaling, which uses special basis functions, we prove that the number of iterations grows only polylogarithmically in the polynomial degree. Here, a sufficiently fine mesh is required. Numerical results supporting the theory are presented.     

A finite element method for steady-state conduction-advection phase change problems

A new finite element: technique is developed to solve steady-state conduction-advection problems with a phase change. The energy balance equation at the solid/liquid interface is employed to calculate the velocity of the solid/liquid interface in the Lagrangian frame. The position of the solid/liquid interface in the Eulerian frame is determined based on the composition of the velocity of the solid/liquid interface in the Lagrangian frame and the steady-state velocity of a rigid body. The interface position and the finite element mesh are continuously updated during an incremental process. No artificial diffusion is needed with this new finite element approach. An analytical solution for solidification of a pure material with a radiative boundary condition is also developed in this paper. Numerical experimentation is conducted and the corresponding results are compared with analytical solutions. The numerical results agree well with analytical solutions.     

Numerical Simulation of Bubbles in Shear Flow

To gain a basic understanding of foam flow, as it can be found e.g. in transport of aerated food, simulation tools can help to provide better insight. Shearing of the bubbles appears in different flow geometries and is for a bubble assembly not captured analytically. Also experimentally, those flow fields are hard to observe so that simulations are the method of choice. Our method to simulate foams uses a volume of fluid approach that is based on the free surface algorithm by Körner et al. [1]. Different from classical multiphase methods, only the liquid phase is simulated and special boundary conditions at the liquid-gas interface account for the gas phase. With this approach high density ratios, e.g. in water-air systems, are easier to realize than in other methods. High density ratios are even necessary to physically justify the model, where the dynamics of the lighter phase are partially neglected. This method is integrated in the Lattice Boltzmann software framework waLBerla [3] (widely applicable Lattice Boltzmann solver from Erlangen†) that can be used on massively parallel computers and thus allows to simulate even large bubble assemblies. As first validation, single bubbles are sheared with different capillary numbers and the simulation results are compared to literature [2] and show good agreement. The next step is shearing a bubble assembly which is arranged like a dense sphere packing. In order to investigate the geometrical configuration of the assembly and its impact on the behavior during a shear deformation, the bubble assembly is rotated with different angles with respect to the shear direction. (© 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

An Acceleration Technique for the Augmented IIM for 3D Elliptic Interface Problems

A new fast algorithm based on the augmented immersed interface method and a fast Poisson solver is proposed to solve three dimensional elliptic interface problems with a piecewise constant but discontinuous coefficient. In the new approach, an augmented variable along the interface, often the jump in the normal derivative along the interface is introduced so that a fast Poisson solver can be utilized. Thus, the solution of the Poisson equation depends on the augmented variable which should be chosen such that the original flux jump condition is satisfied. The discretization of the flux jump condition is done by a weighted least squares interpolation using the solution at the grid points, the jump conditions, and the governing PDEs in a neighborhood of control points on the interface. The interpolation scheme is the key to the success of the augmented IIM particularly. In this paper, the key new idea is to select interpolation points along the normal direction in line with the flux jump condition. Numerical experiments show that the method maintains second order accuracy of the solution and can reduce the CPU time by 20-50%. The number of the GMRES iterations is independent of the mesh size.     

Numerical modelling of free surface flows in metallurgical vessels

A numerical model for simulating the transient behaviour of multi-fluid problems defined in 2D rectangular and cylindrical geometries is presented. The model uses a piecewise linear volume tracking scheme, and maintains sharp interfaces and captures fine-scale flow phenomena such as fragmentation and coalescence. The numerical model was applied to four problems of pyrometallurgical relevance – entrainment of matte in the flow of slag during skimming operations, splash resulting from a drop impinging on a bath, bubble rise in a liquid bath, and top-submerged gas injection. The numerical predictions are in good agreement with the published experimental results. The simulation of top-submerged gas injection showed, in detail, the phenomena of bubble formation, bubble rise, and splash drop formation and recoalescence with the bath. Data useful for engineering purposes such as pressure traces and time-averaged flow fields were obtained, allowing assessment of splash behaviour for given gas injection conditions. The numerical model has been shown to be versatile in being able to adapt to a wide range of multi-phase flow problems.     

壁面效应对剪切稀化流体内气泡上浮特性的影响

数值研究了壁面效应对剪切稀化流体内气泡上浮运动特性的影响,气液两相的界面捕捉采用流体体积(VOF)法,剪切稀化流体流变特性和气液相间表面张力的计算分别采用Carreau模型和连续表面张力模型.详细研究了不同流变指数下,壁面效应对气泡形状、液相流场和气泡终端速度的影响.结果表明,强的壁面效应或弱的剪切稀化程度会限制气泡的变形和尾涡的形成,使气泡的终端速度减小;气泡终端速度最易受壁面效应的影响;强的壁面效应和强的剪切稀化程度会导致高剪切速率区域出现在壁面附近,引起壁面附近液相表观黏度大幅度的下降.     

Numerical modelling of EHD effects on heat transfer and bubble shapes of nucleate boiling

In this article, mathematical and numerical models are developed to study pure electrohydrodynamic (EHD) effects on heat transfer and bubble shapes when an initial bubble attached to a superheated horizontal wall in nucleate boiling. In the modelling of EHD effects on heat transfer, an undeformed bubble is considered; the electric body force and Joule heat are added to the momentum and energy equations; governing equations for heat, fluid flow and electric fields are coupled numerically and solved using a non-orthogonal body-fitted mesh system with necessary interfacial treatments at the gas–liquid boundary. While, to study the pure effect of EHD on the deformation of the bubble, the evaluation of a deformable bubble without heat transfer is simulated by volume of fluid (VOF) method based on an axial symmetric Cartesian coordinate system. The simulations indicate that EHD can effectively enhance heat transfer rate of nucleate boiling by influencing the motion of the ring vortex around the bubble and that bubble can be elongated due to the pull in axial direction and push in the negative radial direction by the electric field force.     

Direct numerical simulation of single gas bubbles in pure and contaminated liquids

Disperse gas bubbles play an important role in many industrial applications. Knowing the rising velocity, the interfacial area, or the critical size for break–up or coalescence in different systems can be crucial for the process design. Hence, knowing the fundamental behaviour of a single bubble appears mandatory for the examination of bubble swarms and for the Euler–Lagrange or Euler–Euler modelling of disperse systems. In the present work a level–set–based volume–tracking method is implemented into the CFD–code OpenFOAM to follow the free interface of a single bubble. The volume–tracking method is coupled with a transport model for surfactants on the interface, including adsorption and desorption processes. The dependency of surface tension on the local surfactant concentration on the interface is modelled by a non–linear (Langmuir) equation of state. Marangoni forces, resulting from surface tension gradients, are included. The rise of a single air bubble (i) in pure water and (ii) in the presence of surfactants of different strengths is simulated. The results show good agreement with available correlations from literature. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A coarse–fine‐mesh stabilization for an alternating Schwarz domain decomposition method

Domain decomposition methods can be solved in various ways. In this paper, domain decomposition in strips is used. It is demonstrated that a special version of the Schwarz alternating iteration method coupled with coarse–fine‐mesh stabilization leads to a very efficient solver, which is easy to implement and has a behavior nearly independent of mesh and problem parameters. The novelty of the method is the use of alternating iterations between odd‐ and even‐numbered subdomains and the replacement of the commonly used coarse‐mesh stabilization method with coarse–fine‐mesh stabilization.     

两并列方柱绕流相互干扰的数值研究

用数值方法研究了绕流两并列方柱的气动力及其相互干扰.使用了陈素琴等人提出的对流项用三阶逆风格式的带多重网格的改进的MAC方法,对两并列方柱的流场进行了模拟.结果表明:两并列方柱在不同的间距比时其干扰特征有很大的不同,小间距比时出现双稳态偏流,流动并不对称于双方柱间隙的中心轴线,而是偏向其中的一个方柱.     

Shooting methods for some steady diffusion and convection problems

For diffusion-dominated steady flows, classical second-order methods are usually used. A large number of iterations, and hence a long computing time, is required to solve the set of discretized equations using an iterative method. On the other hand, a direct solver is degraded because of the accumulation of round- off errors. For convection-dominated flows, first-order upwinding has been used over the past few decades but suffered from severe inaccuracy. In this paper we first discuss the accuracy improvement of solving a diffusion equation by shooting methods. We manage to achieve the theoretical order of accuracy as the mesh size decreases as far as single-precision arithmetic is concerned. We then discuss an application to the interface coupling of subproblems in the context of domain decomposition methods. Finally, we discuss high-order nonoscillatory solutions of a convection-diffusion equation based on shooting methods.     

PARALLEL ADAPTIVE SIMULATION OF A PLUNGING LIQUID JET

This paper is concerned with three-dimensional numerical simulation of a plunging liquid jet. The transient processes of forming an air cavity around the jet, capturing an initially large air bubble, and the break-up of this large toroidal-shaped bubble into smaller bubbles were analyzed. A stabilized finite element method （FEM） was employed under parallel numerical simulations based on adaptive, unstructured grid and coupled with a level-set method to track the interface between air and liquid. These simulations show that the inertia of the liquid jet initially depresses the pool＇s surface, forming an annular air cavity which surrounds the liquid jet. A toroidal liquid eddy which is subse- quently formed in the liquid pool results in air cavity collapse, and in turn entrains air into the liquid pool from the unstable annular air gap region around the liquid jet.     

Coupling of compressible and incompressible flow regions using the multiple pressure variables approach

In many cases, multiphase flows are simulated on the basis of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. This assumption is valid as long as the density changes in the gas phase can be neglected. Yet, for certain technical applications such as fuel injection, this is no longer the case, and at least the gaseous phase has to be treated as a compressible fluid. In this paper, we consider the coupling of a compressible flow region to an incompressible one based on a splitting of the pressure into a thermodynamic and a hydrodynamic part. The compressible Euler equations are then connected to the Mach number zero limit equations in the other region. These limit equations can be solved analytically in one space dimension that allows to couple them to the solution of a half‐Riemann problem on the compressible side with the help of velocity and pressure jump conditions across the interface. At the interface location, the flux terms for the compressible flow solver are provided by the coupling algorithms. The coupling is demonstrated in a one‐dimensional framework by use of a discontinuous Galerkin scheme for compressible two‐phase flow with a sharp interface tracking via a ghost‐fluid type method. The coupling schemes are applied to two generic test cases. The computational results are compared with those obtained with the fully compressible two‐phase flow solver, where the Mach number zero limit is approached by a weakly compressible fluid. For all cases, we obtain a very good agreement between the coupling approaches and the fully compressible solver. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An interface-fitted adaptive mesh method for elliptic problems and its application in free interface problems with surface tension

This work presents a novel two-dimensional interface-fitted adaptive mesh method to solve elliptic problems of jump conditions across the interface, and its application in free interface problems with surface tension. The interface-fitted mesh is achieved by two operations: (i) the projection of mesh nodes onto the interface and (ii) the insertion of mesh nodes right on the interface. The interface-fitting technique is combined with an existing adaptive mesh approach which uses addition/subtraction and displacement of mesh nodes. We develop a simple piecewise linear finite element method built on this interface-fitted mesh and prove its almost optimal convergence for elliptic problems with jump conditions across the interface. Applications to two free interface problems, a sheared drop in Stokes flow and the growth of a solid tumor, are presented. In these applications, the interface surface tension serves as the jump condition or the Dirichlet boundary condition of the pressure, and the pressure is solved with the interface-fitted finite element method developed in this work. In this study, a level-set function is used to capture the evolution of the interface and provide the interface location for the interface fitting.     

Numerical Investigation of Cavitation Interacting with Pressure Wave

A computational fluid dynamics solver based on homogeneous cavitation model is employed to compute the two-phase cavitating flow. The model treats the two-phase regime as the homogeneous mixture of liquid and vapour which are locally assumed to be under both kinetic and thermodynamic equilibrium. As our focus is on pressure wave formation, propagation and its impact on cavitation bubble, the compressibility effects of liquid water have to be accounted for and hence the flow is considered to be compressible. The cavitating flow disturbed by the introduced pressure wave is simulated to investigate the unsteady features of cavitation due to the external perturbations. It is observed that the cavity becomes unstable, locally experiencing deformation or collapse, which depends on the shock wave intensity and freestream flow speed.     

Numerical study of dynamics of single bubbles and bubble swarms

A systematic computational study of the dynamics of gas bubbles rising in a viscous liquid is presented. Two-dimensional simulations are carried out. Both the dynamics of single bubbles and small groups of bubbles (bubble swarms) are considered. This is a continuation of our previous studies on the two-bubble coalescence and vortex shedding [A. Smolianski, H. Haario, P. Luukka, Vortex shedding behind a rising bubble and two-bubble coalescence: a numerical approach, Appl. Math. Model. 29 (2005) 615–632]. The proposed numerical method allows us to simulate a wide range of flow regimes, accurately capturing the shape of the deforming interface of the bubble and the surface tension effect, while maintaining the mass conservation. The computed time-evolution of bubble’s position and rise velocity shows a good agreement with the available experimental data. At the same time, the results on the dynamics of bubble interface area, which are, up to our knowledge, presented for the first time, show how much the overall mass transfer would be affected by the interface deformation in the case of the bubble dissolution. Another set of experiments that are of interest for chemical engineers modelling bubbly flows concerns the bubble swarms and their behavior in different bubble-shape regimes. The ellipsoidal and spherical shape regimes are considered to represent, respectively, the coalescing and non-coalescing bubble swarms. The average rise velocities of the bubble swarms are computed and analyzed for both regimes.     

Spatial Velocity and Temperature Measurements in Non‐Isothermal Liquid Flows

A surface tension driven flow in the liquid vicinity of an air bubble on a heated wall is studied experimentally. The liquid flow caused by the temperature gradient along the surface of the bubble is termed thermocapillary convection. The surface tension force and the buoyancy force oppose one another. The measurement technique is the 3D particle tracking velocity and thermometry, 3D PTV/T, using thermochromic liquid crystals and digital image processing. The paper describes the method in some detail and presents quantitative results for different Marangoni numbers. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A composite Level Set and Extended-Domain-Eigenfunction Method for simulating 2D Stokes flow involving a free surface

In this paper, the Extended-Domain-Eigenfunction-Method (EDEM) is combined with the Level Set Method in a composite numerical scheme for simulating a moving boundary problem. The liquid velocity is obtained by formulating the problem in terms of the EDEM methodology and solved using a least square approach. The propagation of the free surface is effected by a narrow band Level Set Method. The two methods both pass information to each other via a bridging process, which allows the position of the interface to be updated. The numerical scheme is applied to a series of problems involving a gas bubble submerged in a viscous liquid moving subject to both an externally generated flow and the influence of surface tension.     

A parallel well-balanced finite volume method for shallow water equations with topography on the cubed-sphere

A finite volume scheme for the global shallow water model on the cubed-sphere mesh is proposed and studied in this paper. The new cell-centered scheme is based on Osher’s Riemann solver together with a high-order spatial reconstruction. On each patch interface of the cubed-sphere only one layer of ghost cells is needed in the scheme and the numerical flux is calculated symmetrically across the interface to ensure the numerical conservation of total mass. The discretization of the topographic term in the equation is properly modified in a well-balanced manner to suppress spurious oscillations when the bottom topography is non-smooth. Numerical results for several test cases including a steady-state nonlinear geostrophic flow and a zonal flow over an isolated mountain are provided to show the flexibility of the scheme. Some parallel implementation details as well as some performance results on a parallel supercomputer with more than one thousand processor cores are also provided.     

Mesh independent superlinear convergence of an inner–outer iterative method for semilinear elliptic interface problems

We propose the damped inexact Newton method, coupled with preconditioned inner iterations, to solve the finite element discretization of a class of nonlinear elliptic interface problems. The linearized equations are solved by a preconditioned conjugate gradient method. Both the inner and outer iterations exhibit mesh independent superlinear convergence.