Shallow flow simulation on dynamically adaptive cut cell quadtree grids

A computationally efficient, high‐resolution numerical model of shallow flow hydrodynamics is described, based on dynamically adaptive quadtree grids. The numerical model solves the two‐dimensional non‐linear shallow water equations by means of an explicit second‐order MUSCL‐Hancock Godunov‐type finite volume scheme. Interface fluxes are evaluated using an HLLC approximate Riemann solver. Cartesian cut cells are used to improve the fit to curved boundaries. A ghost‐cell immersed boundary method is used to update flow information in the smallest cut cells and overcome the time step restriction that would otherwise apply. The numerical model is validated through simulations of reflection of a surge wave at a wall, a low Froude number potential flow past a circular cylinder, and the shock‐like interaction between a bore and a circular cylinder. The computational efficiency is shown to be greatly improved compared with solutions on a uniform structured grid implemented with cut cells. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Boussinesq cut‐cell model for non‐linear wave interaction with coastal structures

Boussinesq models describe the phase‐resolved hydrodynamics of unbroken waves and wave‐induced currents in shallow coastal waters. Many enhanced versions of the Boussinesq equations are available in the literature, aiming to improve the representation of linear dispersion and non‐linearity. This paper describes the numerical solution of the extended Boussinesq equations derived by Madsen and Sørensen (Coastal Eng. 1992; 15 :371–388) on Cartesian cut‐cell grids, the aim being to model non‐linear wave interaction with coastal structures. An explicit second‐order MUSCL‐Hancock Godunov‐type finite volume scheme is used to solve the non‐linear and weakly dispersive Boussinesq‐type equations. Interface fluxes are evaluated using an HLLC approximate Riemann solver. A ghost‐cell immersed boundary method is used to update flow information in the smallest cut cells and overcome the time step restriction that would otherwise apply. The model is validated for solitary wave reflection from a vertical wall, diffraction of a solitary wave by a truncated barrier, and solitary wave scattering and diffraction from a vertical circular cylinder. In all cases, the model gives satisfactory predictions in comparison with the published analytical solutions and experimental measurements. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A novel Cartesian cut cell solver for incompressible viscous flow in irregular domains

A Cartesian cut cell solver with solution‐based adaptive mesh refinement is developed for simulating viscous, incompressible flows with arbitrary complex geometries. The cut cells are automatically generated using Volume CAD (VCAD), a framework for storing geometric and material attribute data. Unlike earlier cut cell methods, this solver organizes the cutting patterns into only six categories and further subdivides the resulting pentagon into two quadrilaterals, such that mesh data can be stored by uniform data structure and the post‐processing of flow data can be handled conveniently. A novel method is proposed to treat minuscule cut cells without the process of cell merging. A collocated finite volume method, which can be used even when multiple cell shapes and orthogonal and non‐orthogonal grids exist in the decomposition, is employed to discretize the Navier–Stokes equations. A modified SIMPLE‐based smoothing pressure correction scheme is applied in this cut cell method to suppress checkerboard pressure oscillations caused by collocated arrangement. The solver is first used to simulate a channel flow to demonstrate its calculation accuracy expressed with L₁ and L_∞ norm errors and then the method is utilized to solve three benchmark problems of flow and heat transfer within irregular domains to verify its feasibility, efficiency, accuracy and potential in engineering applications. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simple treatment of non‐aligned boundaries in a Cartesian grid shallow flow model

A simple method is proposed for treating curved or irregular boundaries in Cartesian grid shallow flow models. It directly evaluates fictional values in ‘ghost’ cells adjacent to boundary cells and requires no interpolation or generation of cut cells. The boundary treatment is implemented in a dynamically adaptive quadtree grid‐based solver of the hyperbolic shallow water equations and validated against several test cases with analytical or alternative numerical solutions. The method is easy to code, accurate, and demonstrably effective in dealing with irregular computational domains in shallow flow simulations. Results are presented for still water in a basin of complicated geometry, steady hydraulic jump in an open channel with a converging sidewall, wind‐induced circulation in a circular shallow lake, and shock wave diffraction in a channel containing a contraction and expansion. Copyright © 2007 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.     

A Cartesian cut cell free surface capturing method for 3D water impact problems

A Cartesian cut cell mesh generation procedure is developed together with a finite volume Euler solver for a two‐fluid system with a free surface. A fast and robust triangle to triangle overlap scheme is used to determine the intersection of a body‐surface with the background Cartesian mesh. Improvements to the cut cell routines include a new treatment for multiple cuts within a single cell and a surface trimming procedure to ensure a good quality mesh around solid boundaries. The formulae for calculating all necessary information about a cut cell are also presented. These are generic and can be used for arbitrarily irregular boundary elements. A collocated finite volume method with a high resolution Godunov‐type scheme in space is used for discretization of the governing flow equations. By computing in both the air and water regions simultaneously in a consistent manner, the free surface is automatically captured as a contact discontinuity in the density field without the need for any special free surface tracking method. The algorithm incorporates the artificial compressibility method with a dual time stepping strategy to maintain a divergence free velocity field. The mathematical formulation including its numerical implementation of the method is reviewed and results for a number of test cases are also presented. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A 3D incompressible Navier–Stokes velocity–vorticity weak form finite element algorithm

The velocity–vorticity formulation is selected to develop a time‐accurate CFD finite element algorithm for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in three dimensions.The finite element implementation uses equal order trilinear finite elements on a non‐staggered hexahedral mesh. A second order vorticity kinematic boundary condition is derived for the no slip wall boundary condition which also enforces the incompressibility constraint. A biconjugate gradient stabilized (BiCGSTAB) sparse iterative solver is utilized to solve the fully coupled system of equations as a Newton algorithm. The solver yields an efficient parallel solution algorithm on distributed‐memory machines, such as the IBM SP2. Three dimensional laminar flow solutions for a square channel, a lid‐driven cavity, and a thermal cavity are established and compared with available benchmark solutions. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A numerical scheme for solving a periodically forced Reynolds equation

A modified Reynolds equation is used to model the air‐film in a high‐speed squeeze‐film bearing. The axial position of the bearing stator is prescribed as a finite amplitude periodic oscillation. A numerical approach is considered for solving the uncoupled and coupled periodic problems associated with this model. The uncoupled problem requires the computation of the squeeze‐film dynamics when the rotor is held at a fixed axial position and the coupled problem incorporates the additional air–rotor interaction since the rotor position is unknown and modelled as a spring‐mass‐damper system. The details of a Fourier spectral collocation scheme are provided for the reduction of the modified Reynolds equation to a system of non‐linear, first‐order ordinary differential equations in space. Using the Matlab boundary value problem solver bvp4c this system of equations is solved to give the periodic pressure distributions and rotor heights. The high degree of accuracy in the spectral collocation scheme is demonstrated through comparison with an appropriate analytical solution. Further analysis indicates that the direct periodic solver is at least 10 times faster than the equivalent Crank–Nicholson finite‐difference scheme. For changing values of a selected physical parameter the method of arc‐length continuation is employed to track branches of solutions computed using the spectral collocation scheme. A selection of results is presented to demonstrate the range of accessible solutions and the robust nature of the numerical scheme. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Calculation of compressible flows about complex moving geometries using a three‐dimensional Cartesian cut cell method

A three‐dimensional Cartesian cut cell method is described for modelling compressible flows around complex geometries, which may be either static or in relative motion. A background Cartesian mesh is generated and any solid bodies cut out of it. Accurate representation of the geometry is achieved by employing different types of cut cell. A modified finite volume solver is used to deal with boundaries that are moving with respect to the stationary background mesh. The current flow solver is an unsplit MUSCL–Hancock method of the Godunov type, which is implemented in conjunction with a cell‐merging technique to maintain numerical stability in the presence of arbitrarily small cut cells and to retain strict conservation at moving boundaries. The method is applied to some steady and unsteady compressible flows involving both static and moving bodies in three dimensions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Two‐dimensional compact finite difference immersed boundary method

We present a compact finite differences method for the calculation of two‐dimensional viscous flows in biological fluid dynamics applications. This is achieved by using body‐forces that allow for the imposition of boundary conditions in an immersed moving boundary that does not coincide with the computational grid. The unsteady, incompressible Navier–Stokes equations are solved in a Cartesian staggered grid with fourth‐order Runge–Kutta temporal discretization and fourth‐order compact schemes for spatial discretization, used to achieve highly accurate calculations. Special attention is given to the interpolation schemes on the boundary of the immersed body. The accuracy of the immersed boundary solver is verified through grid convergence studies. Validation of the method is done by comparison with reference experimental results. In order to demonstrate the application of the method, 2D small insect hovering flight is calculated and compared with available experimental and computational results. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A hybrid scheme based on finite element/volume methods for two immiscible fluid flows

We have successfully extended our implicit hybrid finite element/volume (FE/FV) solver to flows involving two immiscible fluids. The solver is based on the segregated pressure correction or projection method on staggered unstructured hybrid meshes. An intermediate velocity field is first obtained by solving the 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 used to update the velocity field and the pressure field. The pressure field is carefully updated by taking into account the velocity divergence field. This updating strategy can be rigorously proven to be able to eliminate the unphysical pressure boundary layer and is crucial for the correct temporal convergence rate. Our current staggered‐mesh scheme is distinct from other conventional ones in that we store the velocity components at cell centers and the auxiliary variable at vertices. The fluid interface is captured by solving an advection equation for the volume fraction of one of the fluids. The same matrix‐free FV method, as the one used for momentum equations, is used to solve the advection equation. We will focus on the interface sharpening strategy to minimize the smearing of the interface over time. We have developed and implemented a global mass conservation algorithm that enforces the conservation of the mass for each fluid. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A divergence‐free interpolation scheme for the immersed boundary method

The immersed boundary approach for the modeling of complex geometries in incompressible flows is examined critically from the perspective of satisfying boundary conditions and mass conservation. It is shown that the system of discretized equations for mass and momentum can be inconsistent, if the velocity is used in defining the force density to satisfy the boundary conditions. As a result, the velocity is generally not divergence free and the pressure at locations in the vicinity of the immersed boundary is not physical. However, the use of the pseudo‐velocities in defining the force density, as frequently done when the governing equations are solved using a fractional step or projection method, combined with the use of the specified velocity on the immersed boundary, is shown to result in a consistent set of equations which allows a divergence‐free velocity but, depending on the time step, is shown to have the undesirable effects of inaccurately satisfying the boundary conditions and allowing a significant permeability of the immersed boundary. If the time step is reduced sufficiently, the boundary conditions on the immersed boundary can be satisfied. However, this entails an unacceptable increase in computational expense. Two new methods that satisfy the boundary conditions and allow a divergence‐free velocity while avoiding the increased computational expense are presented and shown to be second‐order accurate in space. The first new method is based on local time step reduction. This method is suitable for problems where the immersed boundary does not move. For these problems, the first new method is shown to be closely related to the second new method. The second new method uses an optimization scheme to minimize the deviation from the interpolation stencil used to represent the immersed boundary while ensuring a divergence‐free velocity. This method performs well for all problems, including those where the immersed boundary moves relative to the grid. Additional results include showing that the force density that is added to satisfy the boundary conditions at the immersed boundary is unbounded as the time step is reduced and that the pressure in the vicinity of the immersed boundary is unphysical, being strongly a function of the time step. A method of computing the total force on an immersed boundary which takes into account the specifics of the numerical solver used in the iterative process and correctly computes the total force irrespective of the residual level is also presented. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An efficient second‐order accurate cut‐cell method for solving the variable coefficient Poisson equation with jump conditions on irregular domains

A numerical method is presented for solving the variable coefficient Poisson equation on a two‐dimensional domain in the presence of irregular interfaces across which both the variable coefficients and the solution itself may be discontinuous. The approach involves using piecewise cubic splines to represent the irregular interface, and applying this representation to calculate the volume and area of each cut cell. The fluxes across the cut‐cell faces and the interface faces are evaluated using a second‐order accurate scheme. The deferred correction approach is used, resulting in a computational stencil for the discretized Poisson equation on an irregular (complex) domain that is identical to that obtained on a regular (simple) domain. In consequence, a highly efficient multigrid solver based on the additive correction multigrid (ACM) method can be applied to solve the current discretized equation system. Several test cases (for which exact solutions to the variable coefficient Poisson equation with and without jump conditions are known) have been used to evaluate the new methodology for discretization on an irregular domain. The numerical solutions show that the new algorithm is second‐order accurate as claimed, even in the presence of jump conditions across an interface. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A numerical simulation of boundary layer effects in a shock tube

A numerical scheme is used to investigate boundary layer effects in a shock tube. The method consists of a mixture of Roe's approximate Riemann solver and central differences for the convective fluxes and central differences for the viscous fluxes and is implicit in one space dimension. Comparisons are made with experimental data and with solutions obtained via boundary layer equations. Examination of the calculated flow field explains the observed behaviour and highlights the approximate nature of boundary layer solutions.     

Effects of the Jacobian evaluation on Newton's solution of the Euler equations

Newton's method is developed for solving the 2‐D Euler equations. The Euler equations are discretized using a finite‐volume method with upwind flux splitting schemes. Both analytical and numerical methods are used for Jacobian calculations. Although the numerical method has the advantage of keeping the Jacobian consistent with the numerical residual vector and avoiding extremely complex analytical differentiations, it may have accuracy problems and need longer execution time. In order to improve the accuracy of numerical Jacobians, detailed error analyses are performed. Results show that the finite‐difference perturbation magnitude and computer precision are the most important parameters that affect the accuracy of numerical Jacobians. A method is developed for calculating an optimal perturbation magnitude that can minimize the error in numerical Jacobians. The accuracy of the numerical Jacobians is improved significantly by using the optimal perturbation magnitude. The effects of the accuracy of numerical Jacobians on the convergence of the flow solver are also investigated. In order to reduce the execution time for numerical Jacobian evaluation, flux vectors with perturbed flow variables are calculated only for neighbouring cells. A sparse matrix solver that is based on LU factorization is used. Effects of different flux splitting methods and higher‐order discretizations on the performance of the solver are analysed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of a hybrid finite volume/element solver for incompressible flows

In this paper, we report our development of an implicit hybrid flow solver for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The methodology is based on the pressure correction or projection method. A fractional step approach is used to obtain an intermediate velocity field by solving the original momentum equations with the matrix‐free implicit cell‐centred finite volume method. The Poisson equation derived from the fractional step approach is solved by the node‐based Galerkin finite element 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 centres and the auxiliary variable at cell vertices, making the current solver a staggered‐mesh scheme. Numerical examples demonstrate the performance of the resulting hybrid scheme, such as the correct temporal convergence rates for both velocity and pressure, absence of unphysical pressure boundary layer, good convergence in steady‐state simulations and capability in predicting accurate drag, lift and Strouhal number in the flow around a circular cylinder. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A general Riemann solver for Euler equations

In this paper, we present a general Riemann solver which is applied successfully to compute the Euler equations in fluid dynamics with many complex equations of state (EOS). The solver is based on a splitting method introduced by the authors. We add a linear advection term to the Euler equations in the first step, to make the numerical flux between cells easy to compute. The added linear advection term is thrown off in the second step. It does not need an iterative technique and characteristic wave decomposition for computation. This new solver is designed to permit the construction of high‐order approximations to obtain high‐order Godunov‐type schemes. A number of numerical results show its robustness. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Voronoi‐based ALE solver for the calculation of incompressible flow on deforming unstructured meshes

An Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian method for the calculation of incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in deforming geometries is described. The mesh node connectivity is defined by a Delaunay triangulation of the nodes, whereas the discretized equations are solved using finite volumes defined by the Voronoi dual of the triangulation. For prescribed boundary motion, an automatic node motion algorithm provides smooth motion of the interior nodes. Changes in the connectivity of the nodes are made through the use of local transformations to maintain the mesh as Delaunay. This allows the nodes and their associated Voronoi finite volumes to migrate through the domain in a free manner, without compromising the quality of the mesh. An MAC finite volume solver is applied on the Voronoi dual using a cell‐centred non‐staggered formulation, with cell‐face velocities being calculated by the Rhie–Chow momentum interpolation. Advective fluxes are approximated with the third‐order QUICK differencing scheme. The solver is demonstrated via its application to a driven cavity flow, and the flow about flapping aerofoil geometries. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Godunov method for the computation of erosional shallow water transients

A Godunov method is proposed for the computation of open‐channel flows in conditions of rapid bed erosion and intense sediment transport. Generalized shallow water equations govern the evolution of three distinct interfaces: the water free‐surface, the boundary between pure water and a sediment transport layer, and the morphodynamic bottom profile. Based on the HLL scheme of Harten, Lax and Van Leer (1983), a finite volume numerical solver is constructed, then extended to second‐order accuracy using Strang splitting and MUSCL extrapolation. Lateralisation of the momentum flux is adopted to handle the non‐conservative product associated with bottom slope. Computational results for erosional dam‐break waves are compared with experimental measurements and semi‐analytical Riemann solutions. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.