Nested Cartesian grid method in incompressible viscous fluid flow

In this work, the local grid refinement procedure is focused by using a nested Cartesian grid formulation. The method is developed for simulating unsteady viscous incompressible flows with complex immersed boundaries. A finite-volume formulation based on globally second-order accurate central-difference schemes is adopted here in conjunction with a two-step fractional-step procedure. The key aspects that needed to be considered in developing such a nested grid solver are proper imposition of interface conditions on the nested-block boundaries, and accurate discretization of the governing equations in cells that are with block-interface as a control-surface. The interpolation procedure adopted in the study allows systematic development of a discretization scheme that preserves global second-order spatial accuracy of the underlying solver, and as a result high efficiency/accuracy nested grid discretization method is developed. Herein the proposed nested grid method has been widely tested through effective simulation of four different classes of unsteady incompressible viscous flows, thereby demonstrating its performance in the solution of various complex flow–structure interactions. The numerical examples include a lid-driven cavity flow and Pearson vortex problems, flow past a circular cylinder symmetrically installed in a channel, flow past an elliptic cylinder at an angle of attack, and flow past two tandem circular cylinders of unequal diameters. For the numerical simulations of flows past bluff bodies an immersed boundary (IB) method has been implemented in which the solid object is represented by a distributed body force in the Navier–Stokes equations. The main advantages of the implemented immersed boundary method are that the simulations could be performed on a regular Cartesian grid and applied to multiple nested-block (Cartesian) structured grids without any difficulty. Through the numerical experiments the strength of the solver in effectively/accurately simulating various complex flows past different forms of immersed boundaries is extensively demonstrated, in which the nested Cartesian grid method was suitably combined together with the fractional-step algorithm to speed up the solution procedure.     

An implicit high-order spectral difference approach for large eddy simulation

The filtered fluid dynamic equations are discretized in space by a high-order spectral difference (SD) method coupled with large eddy simulation (LES) approach. The subgrid-scale stress tensor is modelled by the wall-adapting local eddy-viscosity model (WALE). We solve the unsteady equations by advancing in time using a second-order backward difference formulae (BDF2) scheme. The nonlinear algebraic system arising from the time discretization is solved with the nonlinear lower–upper symmetric Gauss–Seidel (LU-SGS) algorithm. In order to study the sensitivity of the method, first, the implicit solver is used to compute the two-dimensional (2D) laminar flow around a NACA0012 airfoil at Re = 5 × 10⁵ with zero angle of attack. Afterwards, the accuracy and the reliability of the solver are tested by solving the 2D “turbulent” flow around a square cylinder at Re = 10⁴ and Re =  2.2 × 10⁴. The results show a good agreement with the experimental data and the reference solutions.     

High-order incompressible large-eddy simulation of fully inhomogeneous turbulent flows

The subgrid-scale (SGS) eddy-viscosity model developed by Vreman [Phys. Fluids 16 (2004) 3670] and its dynamic version [Phys. Fluids 19 (2007) 065110] are tested in large-eddy simulations (LES) of the turbulent flow in an Re = 12,000 lid-driven cubical cavity by comparison to the direct numerical simulation (DNS) data of Leriche and Gavrilakis [Phys. Fluids 12 (2000) 1363]. This appears to be the first test of this class of model to flows without any homogeneous flow directions, which is typical of flows in complex geometries. Additional LES predictions at Re = 18,000 and Re = 22,000 are compared to the DNS data of Leriche [J. Sci. Comp. 27 (2006)]. The new LES framework yielded excellent agreement for both the mean velocity and Reynolds stress profiles and matches DNS data better than the more traditional Smagorinsky-based SGS models.     

A multi-block ADI finite-volume method for incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in complex geometries

An efficient second-order accurate finite-volume method is developed for a solution of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations on complex multi-block structured curvilinear grids. Unlike in the finite-volume or finite-difference-based alternating-direction-implicit (ADI) methods, where factorization of the coordinate transformed governing equations is performed along generalized coordinate directions, in the proposed method, the discretized Cartesian form Navier–Stokes equations are factored along curvilinear grid lines. The new ADI finite-volume method is also extended for simulations on multi-block structured curvilinear grids with which complex geometries can be efficiently resolved. The numerical method is first developed for an unsteady convection–diffusion equation, then is extended for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The order of accuracy and stability characteristics of the present method are analyzed in simulations of an unsteady convection–diffusion problem, decaying vortices, flow in a lid-driven cavity, flow over a circular cylinder, and turbulent flow through a planar channel. Numerical solutions predicted by the proposed ADI finite-volume method are found to be in good agreement with experimental and other numerical data, while the solutions are obtained at much lower computational cost than those required by other iterative methods without factorization. For a simulation on a grid with O(10⁵) cells, the computational time required by the present ADI-based method for a solution of momentum equations is found to be less than 20% of that required by a method employing a biconjugate-gradient-stabilized scheme.     

A spectral-element discontinuous Galerkin lattice Boltzmann method for nearly incompressible flows

We present a spectral-element discontinuous Galerkin lattice Boltzmann method for solving nearly incompressible flows. Decoupling the collision step from the streaming step offers numerical stability at high Reynolds numbers. In the streaming step, we employ high-order spectral-element discontinuous Galerkin discretizations using a tensor product basis of one-dimensional Lagrange interpolation polynomials based on Gauss–Lobatto–Legendre grids. Our scheme is cost-effective with a fully diagonal mass matrix, advancing time integration with the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method. We present a consistent treatment for imposing boundary conditions with a numerical flux in the discontinuous Galerkin approach. We show convergence studies for Couette flows and demonstrate two benchmark cases with lid-driven cavity flows for Re = 400–5000 and flows around an impulsively started cylinder for Re = 550–9500. Computational results are compared with those of other theoretical and computational work that used a multigrid method, a vortex method, and a spectral element model.     

A transformation-free HOC scheme for incompressible viscous flows past an impulsively started circular cylinder

In this paper, we present a higher order compact scheme for the unsteady two-dimensional (2D) Navier–Stokes equations on nonuniform polar grids specifically designed for the incompressible viscous flows past a circular cylinder. The scheme is second order accurate in time and at least third order accurate in space. The scheme very efficiently computes both unsteady and time-marching steady-state flow for a wide range of Reynolds numbers (Re)$(\mathit{Re})$ ranging from 10 to 9500 for the impulsively started cylinder. The robustness of the scheme is highlighted when it accurately captures the vortex shedding for moderate Re   represented by the von Kármán street and the so called α$\alpha$ and β$\beta$-phenomena for higher Re. Comparisons are made with established numerical and experimental results and excellent agreement is found in all the cases, both qualitatively and quantitatively.     

A direct-forcing embedded-boundary method with adaptive mesh refinement for fluid–structure interaction problems

In the present work we developed a structured adaptive mesh refinement (S-AMR) strategy for fluid–structure interaction problems in laminar and turbulent incompressible flows. The computational grid consists of a number of nested grid blocks at different refinement levels. The coarsest grid blocks always cover the entire computational domain, and local refinement is achieved by the bisection of selected blocks in every coordinate direction. The grid topology and data-structure is managed using the Paramesh toolkit. The filtered Navier–Stokes equations for incompressible flow are advanced in time using an explicit second-order projection scheme, where all spatial derivatives are approximated using second-order central differences on a staggered grid. For transitional and turbulent flow regimes the large-eddy simulation (LES) approach is used, where special attention is paid on the discontinuities introduced by the local refinement. For all the fluid–structure interaction problems reported in this study the complete set of equations governing the dynamics of the flow and the structure are simultaneously advanced in time using a predictor–corrector strategy. An embedded-boundary method is utilized to enforce the boundary conditions on a complex moving body which is not aligned with the grid lines. Several examples of increasing complexity are given to demonstrate the robustness and accuracy of the proposed formulation.     

An efficient numerical method for computing dynamics of spin F = 2 Bose–Einstein condensates

In this paper, we extend the efficient time-splitting Fourier pseudospectral method to solve the generalized Gross–Pitaevskii (GP) equations, which model the dynamics of spin F = 2 Bose–Einstein condensates at extremely low temperature. Using the time-splitting technique, we split the generalized GP equations into one linear part and two nonlinear parts: the linear part is solved with the Fourier pseudospectral method; one of nonlinear parts is solved analytically while the other one is reformulated into a matrix formulation and solved by diagonalization. We show that the method keeps well the conservation laws related to generalized GP equations in 1D and 2D. We also show that the method is of second-order in time and spectrally accurate in space through a one-dimensional numerical test. We apply the method to investigate the dynamics of spin F = 2 Bose–Einstein condensates confined in a uniform/nonuniform magnetic field.     

A conservative level set method for contact line dynamics

A new model for simulating contact line dynamics is proposed. We apply the idea of driving contact-line movement by enforcing the equilibrium contact angle at the boundary, to the conservative level set method for incompressible two-phase flow [E. Olsson, G. Kreiss, A conservative level set method for two phase flow, J. Comput. Phys. 210 (2005) 225–246]. A modified reinitialization procedure provides a diffusive mechanism for contact-line movement, and results in a smooth transition of the interface near the contact line without explicit reconstruction of the interface. We are able to capture contact-line movement without loosing the conservation. Numerical simulations of capillary dominated flows in two space dimensions demonstrate that the model is able to capture contact line dynamics qualitatively correct.     

A current density conservative scheme for incompressible MHD flows at a low magnetic Reynolds number. Part I: On a rectangular collocated grid system

A consistent, conservative and accurate scheme has been designed to calculate the current density and the Lorentz force by solving the electrical potential equation for magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) at low magnetic Reynolds numbers and high Hartmann numbers on a finite-volume structured collocated grid. In this collocated grid, velocity (u), pressure (p), and electrical potential (φ) are located in the grid center, while current fluxes are located on the cell faces. The calculation of current fluxes on the cell faces is conducted using a conservative scheme, which is consistent with the discretization scheme for the solution of electrical potential Poisson equation. A conservative interpolation is used to get the current density at the cell center, which is used to conduct the calculation of Lorentz force at the cell center for momentum equations. We will show that both “conservative” and “consistent” are important properties of the scheme to get an accurate result for high Hartmann number MHD flows with a strongly non-uniform mesh employed to resolve the Hartmann layers and side layers of Hunt’s conductive walls and Shercliff’s insulated walls. A general second-order projection method has been developed for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations with the Lorentz force included. This projection method can accurately balance the pressure term and the Lorentz force for a fully developed core flow. This method can also simplify the pressure boundary conditions for MHD flows.     

Stabilized finite element method for incompressible flows with high Reynolds number

In the following paper, we discuss the exhaustive use and implementation of stabilization finite element methods for the resolution of the 3D time-dependent incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The proposed method starts by the use of a finite element variational multiscale (VMS) method, which consists in here of a decomposition for both the velocity and the pressure fields into coarse/resolved scales and fine/unresolved scales. This choice of decomposition is shown to be favorable for simulating flows at high Reynolds number. We explore the behaviour and accuracy of the proposed approximation on three test cases. First, the lid-driven square cavity at Reynolds number up to 50,000 is compared with the highly resolved numerical simulations and second, the lid-driven cubic cavity up to Re = 12,000 is compared with the experimental data. Finally, we study the flow over a 2D backward-facing step at Re = 42,000. Results show that the present implementation is able to exhibit good stability and accuracy properties for high Reynolds number flows with unstructured meshes.     

Two-level discretizations of nonlinear closure models for proper orthogonal decomposition

Proper orthogonal decomposition has been successfully used in the reduced-order modeling of complex systems. Its original promise of computationally efficient, yet accurate approximation of coherent structures in high Reynolds number turbulent flows, however, still remains to be fulfilled. To balance the low computational cost required by reduced-order modeling and the complexity of the targeted flows, appropriate closure modeling strategies need to be employed. Since modern closure models for turbulent flows are generally nonlinear, their efficient numerical discretization within a proper orthogonal decomposition framework is challenging. This paper proposes a two-level method for an efficient and accurate numerical discretization of general nonlinear closure models for proper orthogonal decomposition reduced-order models. The two-level method computes the nonlinear terms of the reduced-order model on a coarse mesh. Compared with a brute force computational approach in which the nonlinear terms are evaluated on the fine mesh at each time step, the two-level method attains the same level of accuracy while dramatically reducing the computational cost. We numerically illustrate these improvements in the two-level method by using it in three settings: the one-dimensional Burgers equation with a small diffusion parameter ν = 10^?3, the two-dimensional flow past a cylinder at Reynolds number Re = 200, and the three-dimensional flow past a cylinder at Reynolds number Re = 1000.     

Energy law preserving C finite element schemes for phase field models in two-phase flow computations

We use the idea in [33] to develop the energy law preserving method and compute the diffusive interface (phase-field) models of Allen–Cahn and Cahn–Hilliard type, respectively, governing the motion of two-phase incompressible flows. We discretize these two models using a C⁰ finite element in space and a modified midpoint scheme in time. To increase the stability in the pressure variable we treat the divergence free condition by a penalty formulation, under which the discrete energy law can still be derived for these diffusive interface models. Through an example we demonstrate that the energy law preserving method is beneficial for computing these multi-phase flow models. We also demonstrate that when applying the energy law preserving method to the model of Cahn–Hilliard type, un-physical interfacial oscillations may occur. We examine the source of such oscillations and a remedy is presented to eliminate the oscillations. A few two-phase incompressible flow examples are computed to show the good performance of our method.     

A stabilized MLPG method for steady state incompressible fluid flow simulation

In this paper, the meshless local Petrov–Galerkin (MLPG) method is extended to solve the incompressible fluid flow problems. The streamline upwind Petrov–Galerkin (SUPG) method is applied to overcome oscillations in convection-dominated problems, and the pressure-stabilizing Petrov–Galerkin (PSPG) method is applied to satisfy the so-called Babuška–Brezzi condition. The same stabilization parameter τ(τ_SUPG = τ_PSPG) is used in the present method. The circle domain of support, linear basis, and fourth-order spline weight function are applied to compute the shape function, and Bubnov–Galerkin method is applied to discretize the PDEs. The lid-driven cavity flow, backward facing step flow and natural convection in the square cavity are applied to validate the accuracy and feasibility of the present method. The results show that the stability of the present method is very good and convergent solutions can be obtained at high Reynolds number. The results of the present method are in good agreement with the classical results. It also seems that the present method (which is a truly meshless) is very promising in dealing with the convection- dominated problems.     

Optimal time advancing dispersion relation preserving schemes

In this paper we examine the constrained optimization of explicit Runge–Kutta (RK) schemes coupled with central spatial discretization schemes to solve the one-dimensional convection equation. The constraints are defined with respect to the correct error propagation equation which goes beyond the traditional von Neumann analysis   developed in Sengupta et al. [T.K. Sengupta, A. Dipankar, P. Sagaut, Error dynamics: beyond von Neumann analysis, J. Comput. Phys. 226 (2007) 1211–1218]. The efficiency of these optimal schemes is demonstrated for the one-dimensional convection problem and also by solving the Navier–Stokes equations for a two-dimensional lid-driven cavity (LDC) problem. For the LDC problem, results for Re=1000$\mathit{Re}=1000$ are compared with results using spectral methods in Botella and Peyret [O. Botella, R. Peyret, Benchmark spectral results on the lid-driven cavity flow, Comput. Fluids 27 (1998) 421–433] to calibrate the method in solving the steady state problem. We also report the results of the same flow at Re=10,000$\mathit{Re}=10\text{,}000$ and compare them with some recent results to establish the correctness and accuracy of the scheme for solving unsteady flow problems. Finally, we also compare our results for a wave-packet propagation problem with another method developed for computational aeroacoustics.     

A High-Order Projection Method for Tracking Fluid Interfaces in Variable Density Incompressible Flows

We present a numerical method for computing solutions of the incompressible Euler or Navier–Stokes equations when a principal feature of the flow is the presence of an interface between two fluids with different fluid properties. The method is based on a second-order projection method for variable density flows using an “approximate projection” formulation. The boundary between the fluids is tracked with a second-order, volume-of-fluid interface tracking algorithm. We present results for viscious Rayleigh–Taylor problems at early time with equal and unequal viscosities to demonstrate the convergence of the algorithm. We also present computational results for the Rayleigh–Taylor instability in air-helium and for bubbles and drops in an air–water system without surface tension to demonstrate the behavior of the algorithm on problems with large density and viscosity contrasts.     

Incorporating the Havriliak–Negami dielectric model in the FD-TD method

We derive and analyze an efficient algorithm to incorporate the anomalously dispersive Havriliak–Negami dielectric model of induced polarization in the Finite-difference time-domain (FD-TD) method. Our algorithm implements this dielectric model, which in the time-domain involves fractional derivatives and fractional differential operators, with a preset error over the desired computational time interval [0,T_comp] and correctly takes into account the singularity at t = 0⁺ of the corresponding time-domain dielectric susceptibility. The overall algorithm is shown to be second-order accurate in space and time, and to obey the standard FD-TD stability condition. Numerical experiments confirm our analysis.     

Lattice Boltzmann simulations of 2D laminar flows past two tandem cylinders

We apply the lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE) with multiple-relaxation-time (MRT) collision model to simulate laminar flows in two-dimensions (2D). In order to simulate flows in an unbounded domain with the LBE method, we need to address two issues: stretched non-uniform mesh and inflow and outflow boundary conditions. We use the interpolated grid stretching method to address the need of non-uniform mesh. We demonstrate that various inflow and outflow boundary conditions can be easily and consistently realized with the MRT-LBE. The MRT-LBE with non-uniform stretched grids is first validated with a number of test cases: the Poiseuille flow, the flow past a cylinder asymmetrically placed in a channel, and the flow past a cylinder in an unbounded domain. We use the LBE method to simulate the flow past two tandem cylinders in an unbounded domain with Re = 100. Our results agree well with existing ones. Through this work we demonstrate the effectiveness of the MRT-LBE method with grid stretching.     

Numerical investigation of natural convection heat transfer of nanofluids in a Γ shaped cavity

This paper analyzes the heat transfer and fluid flow of natural convection in a Γ shaped enclosure filled with Al₂O₃/Water nanofluid that operates under differentially heated walls. The Navier–Stokes and energy equations are solved numerically. Heat transfer and fluid flow are examined for parameters of non-uniform nanoparticle size, mean nanoparticle diameter, nanoparticle volume fraction, Grashof number and different geometry of enclosure. Finite volume method is used for discretizating positional expressions, and the forth order Rung-Kuta is used for discretizating time expressions. Also an artificial compressibility technique was applied to couple continuity to momentum equations. Results indicate that using nanofluid causes an increase in the heat transfer and the Nusselt number so that for R = 0.001 in Gr = 10³, the Nusselt number 25%, in Gr = 10⁴ 26%, and in Gr = 10⁵ 28% increases. Furthermore; by decreasing the mean diameters of nanoparticles, Nusselt number increases. By increasing R parameter (d_p,min/d_p,max) and nano particle volume fraction, Nusselt number increases.     

Two new upwind difference schemes for a coupled system of convection–diffusion equations arising from the steady MHD duct flow problems

In this paper, we develop two new upwind difference schemes for solving a coupled system of convection–diffusion equations arising from the steady incompressible MHD duct flow problem with a transverse magnetic field at high Hartmann numbers. Such an MHD duct flow is convection-dominated and its solution may exhibit localized phenomena such as boundary layers, namely, narrow boundary regions where the solution changes rapidly. Most conventional numerical schemes cannot efficiently solve the layer problems because they are lacking in either stability or accuracy. In contrast, the newly proposed upwind difference schemes can achieve a reasonable accuracy with a high stability, and they are capable of resolving high gradients near the layer regions without refining the grid. The accuracy of the first new upwind scheme is O(h + k) and the second one improves the accuracy to O(ε²(h + k) + ε(h² + k²) + (h³ + k³)), where 0 < ε ? 1/M ? 1 and M is the high Hartmann number. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the performance of the newly proposed upwind difference schemes.