High-order non-uniform grid schemes for numerical simulation of hypersonic boundary-layer stability and transition

The direct numerical simulation of receptivity, instability and transition of hypersonic boundary layers requires high-order accurate schemes because lower-order schemes do not have an adequate accuracy level to compute the large range of time and length scales in such flow fields. The main limiting factor in the application of high-order schemes to practical boundary-layer flow problems is the numerical instability of high-order boundary closure schemes on the wall. This paper presents a family of high-order non-uniform grid finite difference schemes with stable boundary closures for the direct numerical simulation of hypersonic boundary-layer transition. By using an appropriate grid stretching, and clustering grid points near the boundary, high-order schemes with stable boundary closures can be obtained. The order of the schemes ranges from first-order at the lowest, to the global spectral collocation method at the highest. The accuracy and stability of the new high-order numerical schemes is tested by numerical simulations of the linear wave equation and two-dimensional incompressible flat plate boundary layer flows. The high-order non-uniform-grid schemes (up to the 11th-order) are subsequently applied for the simulation of the receptivity of a hypersonic boundary layer to free stream disturbances over a blunt leading edge. The steady and unsteady results show that the new high-order schemes are stable and are able to produce high accuracy for computations of the nonlinear two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations for the wall bounded supersonic flow.     

多孔表面推迟高超声速边界层转捩的机理

利用线性稳定性理论分析（LST）结合直接数值模拟（DNS）研究高超声速多孔表面边界层流动的失稳特征,分析多孔表面推迟高超声速边界层转捩的机理.在Ma=6,Re=2.0×10⁴（参考长度为入口处边界层位移厚度）条件下获得平板边界层及不同孔隙排列情形下平板边界层的典型流动特征,并采用LST方法分析光滑平板及多孔平板扰动的增长率及累计放大率.研究表明三维顺排及错排多孔表面都可以抑制第二模扰动的发展,推迟高超声速边界层转捩,但顺排多孔表面推迟高超声速边界层转捩能力更强.     

Improved algorithm for solving nonlinear parabolized stability equations

Due to its high computational efficiency and ability to consider nonparallel and nonlinear effects, nonlinear parabolized stability equations(NPSE) approach has been widely used to study the stability and transition mechanisms. However,it often diverges in hypersonic boundary layers when the amplitude of disturbance reaches a certain level. In this study, an improved algorithm for solving NPSE is developed. In this algorithm, the mean flow distortion is included into the linear operator instead of into the nonlinear forcing terms in NPSE. An under-relaxation factor for computing the nonlinear terms is introduced during the iteration process to guarantee the robustness of the algorithm. Two case studies, the nonlinear development of stationary crossflow vortices and the fundamental resonance of the second mode disturbance in hypersonic boundary layers, are presented to validate the proposed algorithm for NPSE. Results from direct numerical simulation(DNS) are regarded as the baseline for comparison. Good agreement can be found between the proposed algorithm and DNS, which indicates the great potential of the proposed method on studying the crossflow and streamwise instability in hypersonic boundary layers.     

Three-dimensional elliptic grid generation with fully automatic boundary constraints

A new procedure for generating smooth uniformly clustered three-dimensional structured elliptic grids is presented here which formulates three-dimensional boundary constraints by extending the two-dimensional counterpart¹ presented by the author earlier. This fully automatic procedure obviates the need for manual specification of decay parameters over the six bounding surfaces of a given volume grid. The procedure has been demonstrated here for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) geometries such as aeroshell and canopy, as well as the Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (IAD) geometry and a 3D analytically defined geometry. The new procedure also enables generation of single-block grids for such geometries because the automatic boundary constraints permit the decay parameters to evolve as part of the solution to the elliptic grid system of equations. These decay parameters are no longer just constants, as specified in the conventional approach, but functions of generalized coordinate variables over a given bounding surface. Since these decay functions vary over a given boundary, orthogonal grids around any arbitrary simply-connected boundary can be clustered automatically without having to break up the boundaries and the corresponding interior or exterior domains into various blocks for grid generation. The new boundary constraints are not limited to the simply-connected regions only, but can also be formulated around multiply-connected and isolated regions in the interior. The proposed method is superior to other methods of grid generation such as algebraic and hyperbolic techniques in that the grids obtained here are C² continuous, whereas simple elliptic smoothing of algebraic or hyperbolic grids to enforce C² continuity destroys the grid clustering near the boundaries.     

高超声速边界层中由粗糙元引起强制转捩的机理

由大粗糙元引起的高超声速边界层强制转捩在航天技术中有实际应用, 因而近年来受到人们的广泛关注.虽然目前导致该转捩过程的内在机理尚不完全清楚, 但有一点是明确的, 即粗糙元的尾迹流场中存在强对流不稳定性.文章的出发点是研究这种对流不稳定模态是如何触发转捩的.首先通过CFD方法, 计算出高超声速边界层中粗糙元的尾迹流场, 并对其进行二维稳定性分析.结果发现, 在传统不稳定Tollmien-Schlichting(T-S)模态出现的临界Reynolds数之前, 存在高增长率的无黏不稳定模态, 表现为对称的余弦模态和反对称的正弦模态.然后对该不稳定模态在粗糙元尾迹流中的演化进行了模拟, 验证了二维稳定性分析的结果, 并考察了非平行性效应的影响.最后通过直接数值模拟, 研究由这些不稳定模态触发转捩的全过程.结果表明, 对流不稳定模态确实是导致边界层转捩的关键机制.该转捩过程的特点是, 局部湍斑首先在不稳定模态特征函数的峰值附近出现, 然后向全流场扩散.就文章研究的工况而言, 余弦和正弦模态的相互作用对转捩的影响并不明显, 且后者在转捩过程中起主导作用.      

一种非结构/结构多层混合网格方法及其应用

对于粘性绕流的数值模拟,在自适应直角网格基础上,结合三角形非结构网格和结构化网格,利用其各自的优势和特点,提出一种生成混合杂交网格的思路和方法.在物面附近生成适合粘性流计算的大长宽比结构化网格,在远场分布自适应直角网格,快速离散计算空间.对于复杂的多体问题,采用三角形网格来连接各体网格,并运用网格合并的方法,保证各网格之间的光滑过渡与连接,提高网格质量.针对一些二维、三维外形的绕流问题,在上述网格基础上,采用B-L代数湍流模型和中心有限体积法,完成Navier-Stokes和Euler方程数值模拟的对比计算,结果表明网格生成和流场计算是正确的.     

Gas-kinetic numerical studies of three-dimensional complex flows on spacecraft re-entry

The gas-kinetic numerical algorithm solving the Boltzmann model equation is extended and developed to study the three-dimensional hypersonic flows of spacecraft re-entry into the atmosphere in perfect gas. In this study, the simplified velocity distribution function equation for various flow regimes is presented on the basis of the kinetic Boltzmann–Shakhov model. The discrete velocity ordinate technique and numerical quadrature methods, such as the Gauss quadrature formulas with the weight function 2/π^1/2exp(?V²) and the Gauss–Legendre numerical quadrature rule, are studied to resolve the barrier in simulating complex flows from low Mach numbers to hypersonic problems. Specially, the gas-kinetic finite-difference scheme is constructed for the computation of three-dimensional flow problems, which directly captures the time evolution of the molecular velocity distribution function. The gas-kinetic boundary conditions and numerical procedures are studied and implemented by directly acting on the velocity distribution function. The HPF (high performance fortran) parallel implementation technique for the gas-kinetic numerical method is developed and applied to study the hypersonic flows around three-dimensional complex bodies. The main purpose of the current research is to provide a way to extend the gas-kinetic numerical algorithm to the flow computation of three-dimensional complex hypersonic problems with high Mach numbers. To verify the current method and simulate gas transport phenomena covering various flow regimes, the three-dimensional hypersonic flows around sphere and spacecraft shape with different Knudsen numbers and Mach numbers are studied by HPF parallel computing. Excellent results have been obtained for all examples computed.     

Transition prediction of a hypersonic boundary layer over a cone at small angle of attack—with the improvement of e<Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">N</Emphasis></Superscript> method

The problem of transition prediction for hypersonic boundary layers over a sharp cone has been studied in this work. The Mach number of the oncoming flow is 6, the cone half-angle is 5°, and the angle of attack is 1°. The conventional e ^N method is used, but the transition location so obtained is obviously incorrect. The reason is that in the conventional method, only the amplifying waves are taken into account, while in fact, for different meridians the decay processes of the disturbances before they begin to grow are different. Based on our own previous work, new interpretation and essential improvement for the e ^N method are proposed. Not only the amplification process but also the decay process is considered. The location, where by linear stability theory, the amplitude of disturbance wave is amplified from its initial small value to 1%, is considered to be the transition location. The new result for transition prediction thus obtained is found to be fairly satisfactory. It is also indicated that for the calculation of base flow, boundary layer equations can be used for a small angle of attack. Its computational cost is much smaller than those for DNS. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 10632050 and 90716007), the Special Foundation for the Authors of National Excellent Doctoral Dissertations (Grant No. 200328), and the Foundation of Liu-Hui Center of Applied Mathematics of Nankai University and Tianjin University     

高超声速平板边界层/圆柱粗糙元非定常干扰

以高超声速表面湍流控制为应用背景,平板/粗糙元干扰流动为模型,采用大涡模拟方法研究粗糙元流场干扰作用机理.分析粗糙元外形特征对于流动稳定性影响,给出其引起的流动表面参数的变化规律.结果显示超声速边界层在粗糙元作用下产生强逆压梯度并发生分离,粗糙元高度对高位自由剪切层失稳有明显影响,低粗糙元干扰下游流动稳定性,而高粗糙元剪切层发生流向失稳,形成涡串结构;同时粗糙元干扰导致下游摩阻和热流系数较平板略低,可能应用在进气道降热和减阻中.     

环形燃烧室火焰简及旋流器流场计算

本文采用偏微分方程法生成贴体网格,在任意曲线坐标系下数值研究两种先进燃烧室火焰筒及其旋流器三维紊流流场。由于旋流器的形状复杂,本文采用型线定点法确定网格的边界。在非交错网格系下采用SIMPLE算法和混合差分格式对离散方程进行求解。计算结果表明计算方法合理,这计算程序进一步扩展,可用来预估环形燃烧室反应流流场。     

High-order shock-fitting methods for direct numerical simulation of hypersonic flow with chemical and thermal nonequilibrium

In recent years, much progress has been made in the direct numerical simulation of laminar-turbulent transition of hypersonic boundary layer flow. However, most of the efforts at the direct numerical simulation of transition previously have been focused on the idealized perfect gas flow or “cold” hypersonic flows. For practical problems in hypersonic flows, high-temperature effects of thermal and chemical nonequilibrium are important and cannot be modeled by a perfect gas model. Therefore, it is necessary to include the real gas models in the numerical simulation of hypersonic boundary layer transition in order to accurately predict flow field parameters. Currently most numerical methods for hypersonic flow with thermo-chemical nonequilibrium are based on shock-capturing approach at relatively low order of accuracy. Shock capturing schemes reduce to first-order accuracy near the shock and have been shown to produce spurious oscillations behind curved strong shocks. There is a need to develop new methods capable of simulating nonequilibrium hypersonic flow fields with uniformly high-order accuracy and avoid spurious oscillations near the shock. This paper presents a fifth-order shock-fitting method for numerical simulation of thermal and chemical nonequilibrium in hypersonic flows. The method is developed based on the state-of-the-art real gas models for thermo-chemical nonequilibrium and transport phenomena. Shock-fitting approach is used because it has the advantage of capturing the entire flow field with high-order accuracy and without any oscillations near the shock. The new method has been tested and validated for a number of test cases over a wide span of free stream conditions. The developed method is applied for the study of receptivity of free stream acoustic waves over a blunt cone for hypervelocity flow. Some preliminary results of the computations of the high order shock fitting method for the above mentioned study have also been presented.     

Receptivity to free-stream disturbance waves for hypersonic flow over a blunt cone

A high-order shock-fitting finite difference scheme is studied and used to do direction numerical simulation (DNS) of hypersonic unsteady flow over a blunt cone with fast acoustic waves in the free stream, and the receptivity problem in the blunt cone hypersonic boundary layers is studied. The results show that the acoustic waves are the strongest disturbance in the blunt cone hypersonic boundary layers. The wave modes of disturbance in the blunt cone boundary layers are first, second, and third modes which are generated and propagated downstream along the wall. The results also show that as the frequency decreases, the amplitudes of wave modes of disturbance increase, but there is a critical value. When frequency is over the critial value, the amplitudes decrease. Because of the discontinuity of curvature along the blunt cone body, the maximum amplitudes as a function of frequencies are not monotone. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 10632050 and 10502052)     

基于Ludwieg管的高超声速边界层转捩实验

高超声速边界层层/湍流转捩是高超声速飞行器气动力和气动热设计中的难点和热点问题.为了降低开展高超声速边界层不稳定性与转捩实验研究的门槛,研究基于Ludwieg管原理设计并建造了一座Mach 6高超声速管风洞,重点对Ludwieg管风洞的启动和运行过程开展了数值模拟,分析了储气段弯管布局对试验段流场的影响;之后,对该高超...     

高超声速椭圆锥边界层横流转捩特性大涡模拟

横流效应显著影响高超声速飞行器的三维边界层转捩过程, 深化对该流动机制的认识有助于提升和改善飞行器气动性能及热力学环境. 针对HIFiRE5椭圆锥绕流问题, 采用大涡模拟方法计算分析了超声速边界层横流转捩特性, 并揭示其中的流动机理. 参考HIFiRE5风洞模型试验条件, 数值模拟中椭圆锥来流入口处施加人工速度扰动以激发边界层内不稳定扰动波, 进而预测了高超声速边界层流动横流失稳、转捩过程等基本流动特征, 并基于转捩热流分布形态对比, 获得了与试验数据基本吻合的计算结果. 研究发现, 椭圆锥中心线流动汇聚形成的流向涡结构非常容易失稳, 另外在中心线及侧缘之间的中部区域存在较强的横流不稳定性, 两种机制共同作用影响边界层转捩过程. 此外, 分析了来流扰动幅值对边界层横流失稳转捩的影响, 并发现静来流条件下, 横流区域出现两组独立的定常横流涡结构, 而强噪声来流条件下, 中心线主涡和中部横流涡均发生失稳转捩, 且在椭圆锥表面形成多峰状的转捩阵面. 最后, 深入分析流场的压力脉动动力学特性, 揭示了三维边界层发生失稳转捩的非线性演化机制.      

A low numerical dissipation immersed interface method for the compressible Navier–Stokes equations

A numerical method to solve the compressible Navier–Stokes equations around objects of arbitrary shape using Cartesian grids is described. The approach considered here uses an embedded geometry representation of the objects and approximate the governing equations with a low numerical dissipation centered finite-difference discretization. The method is suitable for compressible flows without shocks and can be classified as an immersed interface method. The objects are sharply captured by the Cartesian mesh by appropriately adapting the discretization stencils around the irregular grid nodes, located around the boundary. In contrast with available methods, no jump conditions are used or explicitly derived from the boundary conditions, although a number of elements are adopted from previous immersed interface approaches. A new element in the present approach is the use of the summation-by-parts formalism to develop stable non-stiff first-order derivative approximations at the irregular grid points. Second-order derivative approximations, as those appearing in the transport terms, can be stiff when irregular grid points are located too close to the boundary. This is addressed using a semi-implicit time integration method. Moreover, it is shown that the resulting implicit equations can be solved explicitly in the case of constant transport properties. Convergence studies are performed for a rotating cylinder and vortex shedding behind objects of varying shapes at different Mach and Reynolds numbers.     

Application of strand meshes to complex aerodynamic flow fields

We explore a new approach for viscous computational fluid dynamics calculations for external aerodynamics around geometrically complex bodies that incorporates nearly automatic mesh generation and efficient flow solution methods. A prismatic-like grid using “strands” is grown a short distance from the body surface to capture the viscous boundary layer, and adaptive Cartesian grids are used throughout the rest of the domain. The approach presents several advantages over established methods: nearly automatic grid generation from triangular or quadrilateral surface tessellations, very low memory overhead, automatic mesh adaptivity for time-dependent problems, and fast and efficient solvers from structured data in both the strand and Cartesian grids.The approach is evaluated for complex geometries and flow fields. We investigate the effects of strand length and strand vector smoothing to understand the effects on computed solutions. Results of three applications using the strand-adaptive Cartesian approach are given, including a NACA wing, isolated V-22 (TRAM) rotor in hover, and the DLR-F6 wing-body transport. The results from these cases show that the strand approach can successfully resolve near-body and off-body features as well as or better than established methods.     

Spectral difference method for compressible flow on unstructured grids with mixed elements

This paper presents the development of a 2D solver for inviscid and viscous compressible flows using the spectral difference (SD) method for unstructured grids with mixed elements. A mixed quadrilateral and triangular grid is first refined using one-level h-refinement to generate a quadrilateral grid while keeping the curvature of boundary edges. The SD method designed for quadrilateral meshes can subsequently be applied for the refined unstructured grid. Results obtained with the SD method for both inviscid and viscous compressible flows compare well with analytical solutions and other published results.     

High-order compact finite-difference methods on general overset grids

This work investigates the coupling of a very high-order finite-difference algorithm for the solution of conservation laws on general curvilinear meshes with overset-grid techniques originally developed to address complex geometric configurations. The solver portion of the algorithm is based on Padé-type compact finite-differences of up to sixth-order, with up to 10th-order filters employed to remove spurious waves generated by grid non-uniformities, boundary conditions and flow non-linearities. The overset-grid approach is utilized as both a domain-decomposition paradigm for implementation of the algorithm on massively parallel machines and as a means for handling geometric complexity in the computational domain. Two key features have been implemented in the current work; the ability of the high-order algorithm to accommodate holes cut in grids by the overset-grid approach, and the use of high-order interpolation at non-coincident grid overlaps. Several high-order/high-accuracy interpolation methods were considered, and a high-order, explicit, non-optimized Lagrangian method was found to be the most accurate and robust for this application. Several two-dimensional benchmark problems were examined to validate the interpolation methods and the overall algorithm. These included grid-to-grid interpolation of analytic test functions, the inviscid convection of a vortex, laminar flow over single- and double-cylinder configurations, and the scattering of acoustic waves from one- and three-cylinder configurations. The employment of the overset-grid techniques, coupled with high-order interpolation at overset boundaries, was found to be an effective way of employing the high-order algorithm for more complex geometries than was previously possible.