Computations of Optimal Controls for Incompressible Flows

Abstract

This paper is concerned with numerical solutions of optimal control problems for unsteady, viscous, incompressible flows. In general, controls can be of the distributed type (external body force) or Dirichlet type 7lpar;e.g., boundary velocity). Here, wc only consider the former case, although most of what we present is also applicable to the latter. Two different optimization objectives and associated solution methodologies are described. One involves a global-in-time functional, the other a local-in-time functional. Which method is preferred depends on the specific application. Some test computational results are presented.     

Control Problems for the Steady-State Equations of Magnetohydrodynamics of a Viscous Incompressible Fluid

Control problems for a steady-state model of the magnetohydrodynamics of a viscous incompressible fluid in a bounded domain with an impermeable, perfectly conducting boundary are formulated. The resolvability of the problems is studied, the use of the Lagrange principle is justified, and optimality systems are analyzed.     

On Plane-Parallel Separated Flows of an Incompressible Fluid near Flat Boundaries

On the basis of Stokes separated flows, examples of separated flows described by the Navier-Stokes equations of a viscous incompressible fluid are constructed. These flows are represented by series convergent in a certain non-zero neighborhood of a flat contour immersed in the flow. In this neighborhood, the series have the same structure as those for the basic Stokes flows. Examples of the regions in which the series segments chosen give only a slight deviation from the numerical solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations are presented. The comparison between inviscid separated flows (without the no-slip condition on the contour) and viscous flows of the same structure (with the no-slip condition) shows that the viscosity does not play a decisive role in the formation of separation or the type of streamline approach to or departure from the contour.     

Penalty Methods for Numerical Approximations of Optimal Boundary Flow Control Problems

Abstract

This article is concerned with penalty methods for solving optimal Dirichlet control problems governed by the steady-state and time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations. We present, in two different versions, the penalized methods for solving the steady-slate Dirichlet control problems. These approaches are implemented and compared numerically. We also generalize the penalty methods to the time-dependent case. Scmidiscrete and fully discrete approximations of time-dependent Dirichlet control problems are discussed and implemented. Numerical results for solving both the steady-state and the time dependent Dirichlet control problems are reported.     

Reduced Basis Method for Optimal Control of Unsteady Viscous Flows

In this article we discuss the reduced basis method (RBM) for optimal control of unsteady viscous flows. RBM is a reduction method in which one can achieve the versatility of the finite element method or another for that matter and gain significant reduction in the number of degrees of freedom. The essential idea in this method is to define a reduced order subspace spanned by few basis elements and then obtain the solution via a Galerkin projection. We present several ways to define this subspace. Feasibility of the approach is demonstrated on two boundary control problems in cavity and wall bounded channel flows. Control action is effected through boundary surface movement on part of the solid wall. Application of RBM to the control problems leads to finite dimensional optimal control problems which are solved using Newton's method. Through computational experiments we demonstrate the feasibility and applicability of the reduced basis method for control of unsteady viscous flows.     

Three Control Methods for Time-Dependent Fluid Flow

We summarize some of the recent developments in the field of optimal and suboptimal control strategies for time-dependent incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. Besides the Newton method,reduced order modeling (ROM) and receding horizon control strategies are described. All approaches are applied to compute controls for the unsteady flow around a cylinder in two spatial dimensions. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Particle Simulation of Swirling Flows

The vortex particle method has been applied to the axisymmetric swirling flow of a viscous fluid. The formulation used yields two transport equations which have been solved within the lagrangian framework of particle method. The diffusion operator for both equations has been approximated by means of a Particle Strength Exchange scheme. Applications to the cases of one isolated vortex ring and two co-rotating vortex rings illustrate the interest of this new method. Special attention has been devoted to the vorticity production resulting from the interaction between the azimuthal components of vorticity and velocity. The generation of small eddies at the boundary of the vortex ring cross-section has been particularly investigated. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Viscous flows in corner regions: Singularities and hidden eigensolutions

Numerical issues arising in computations of viscous flows in corners formed by a liquid–fluid free surface and a solid boundary are considered. It is shown that on the solid a Dirichlet boundary condition, which removes multivaluedness of velocity in the ‘moving contact‐line problem’ and gives rise to a logarithmic singularity of pressure, requires a certain modification of the standard finite‐element method. This modification appears to be insufficient above a certain critical value of the corner angle where the numerical solution becomes mesh‐dependent. As shown, this is due to an eigensolution, which exists for all angles and becomes dominant for the supercritical ones. A method of incorporating the eigensolution into the numerical method is described that makes numerical results mesh‐independent again. Some implications of the unavoidable finiteness of the mesh size in practical applications of the finite‐element method in the context of the present problem are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparison of pressure correction smoothers for multigrid solution of incompressible flow

We compare the performance of different pressure correction algorithms used as basic solvers in a multigrid method for the solution of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations on non-staggered grids. Numerical tests were performed on several cases of lid-driven cavity flow using four different pressure correction schemes, including the traditional SIMPLE and SIMPLEC methods as well as novel variants, and varying combinations of underrelaxation parameters. The results show that three of the four algorithms tested are robust smoothers for the multigrid solver and that one of the new methods converges fastest in most of the tests. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An implicit edge‐based ALE method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

A new finite volume method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations, expressed in arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) form, is presented. The method uses a staggered storage arrangement for the pressure and velocity variables and adopts an edge‐based data structure and assembly procedure which is valid for arbitrary n‐sided polygonal meshes. Edge formulas are presented for assembling the ALE form of the momentum and pressure equations. An implicit multi‐stage time integrator is constructed that is geometrically conservative to the precision of the arithmetic used in the computation. The method is shown to be second‐order‐accurate in time and space for general time‐dependent polygonal meshes. The method is first evaluated using several well‐known unsteady incompressible Navier–Stokes problems before being applied to a periodically forced aeroelastic problem and a transient free surface problem. Published in 2003 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adjoint Methods in Data Assimilation for Estimating Model Error

Data assimilation aims to incorporate measured observations into a dynamical system model in order to produce accurate estimates of all the current (and future) state variables of the system. The optimal estimates minimize a variational principle and can be found using adjoint methods. The model equations are treated as strong constraints on the problem. In reality, the model does not represent the system behaviour exactly and errors arise due to lack of resolution and inaccuracies in physical parameters, boundary conditions and forcing terms. A technique for estimating systematic and time-correlated errors as part of the variational assimilation procedure is described here. The modified method determines a correction term that compensates for model error and leads to improved predictions of the system states. The technique is illustrated in two test cases. Applications to the 1-D nonlinear shallow water equations demonstrate the effectiveness of the new procedure. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

On the pressure and stress singularities induced by steady flows of incompressible viscous fluids

Design for structural integrity requires an appreciation of where stress singularities can occur in structural configurations. While there is a rich literature devoted to the identification of such singular behavior in solid mechanics, to date there has been relatively little explicit identification of stress singularities caused by fluid flows. In this study, stress and pressure singularities induced by steady flows of viscous incompressible fluids are asymptotically identified. This is done by taking advantage of an earlier result that the Navier-Stokes equations are locally governed by Stokes flow in angular corners. Findings for power singularities are confirmed by developing and using an analogy with solid mechanics. This analogy also facilitates the identification of flow-induced log singularities. Both types of singularity are further confirmed for two global configurations by applying convergence-divergence checks to numerical results. Even though these flow-induced stress singularities are analogous to singularities in solid mechanics, they nonetheless render a number of structural configurations singular that were not previously appreciated as such from identifications within solid mechanics alone.     

ONSET OF ASYMMETRY: FLOW PAST CIRCULAR AND ELLIPTIC CYLINDERS

A computational study of the development of two- dimensional unsteady viscous incompressible flow around a circular cylinder and elliptic cylinders is undertaken at a Reynolds number of 10,000. A higher- order upwind scheme is used to solve the Navier–Stokes equations by the finite difference method in order to study the onset of computed asymmetry around bluff bodies. For the computed cases the ellipses develop asymmetry much earlier than the circular cylinder. The receptivity of the computed flows in the presence of discrete roughness and surface vibration is studied. Finally, the role of discrete roughness in triggering asymmetry for flow past a circular cylinder is studied and compared with flow visualization experiments at Re=10,000     

Modeling of Steady Flows in a Channel by Navier–Stokes Variational Inequalities

A mathematical model of a steady viscous incompressible fluid flow in a channel with exit conditions different from the Dirichlet conditions is considered. A variational inequality is derived for the formulated subdifferential boundary-value problem, and the structure of the set of its solutions is studied. For two-ption on the low Reynolds number is proved. In the three-dimensional case, a class of constraints on the tangential component of velocity at the exit, which guarantees solvability of the variational inequality, is found.     

A Geometric Condition Implying an Energy Equality for Solutions of the 3D Navier–Stokes Equation

We prove that every weak solution u to the 3D Navier–Stokes equation that belongs to the class L ³ L ^9/2 and ?u belongs to L ³ L ^9/5 locally away from a 1/2-Hölder continuous curve in time satisfies the generalized energy equality. In particular every such solution is suitable.     

An application of interacting shear flows theory: exact solution for unsteady oblique stagnation point flow

An analytical solution of the governing equations of the interacting shear flows for unsteady oblique stagnation point flow is obtained. It has the same form as that of the exact solution obtained from the complete NS equations and physical analysis and relevant discussions are then presented.The English text was polished by Yunming Chen.     

An algorithm for the computation of multiple Hopf bifurcation points based on Pade approximants

Recently, a numerical method was proposed to compute a Hopf bifurcation point in fluid mechanics. This numerical method associates a bifurcation indicator and a Newton method. The former gives initial guesses to the iterative method. These initial values are the minima of the bifurcation indicator. However, sometimes, these minima do not lead to the convergence of the Newton method. Moreover, as only a single initial guess is obtained for each computation of the indicator, the computational time to obtain a Hopf bifurcation point can be quite long. The present algorithm is an enhancement of the previous one. It consists in automatically computing several initial guesses for each indicator curve. The majority of these initial values leads to the convergence of the Newton method. This method is evaluated through the problem of the lid‐driven cavity with several aspect ratios in the framework of the finite element analysis of the 2D Navier–Stokes equations. The results prove the efficiency and the robustness of the proposed algorithm. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SIMPLE‐type preconditioners for cell‐centered,colocated finite volume discretization of incompressible Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes equations

This paper contains a comparison of four SIMPLE‐type methods used as solver and as preconditioner for the iterative solution of the (Reynolds‐averaged) Navier–Stokes equations, discretized with a finite volume method for cell‐centered, colocated variables on unstructured grids. A matrix‐free implementation is presented, and special attention is given to the treatment of the stabilization matrix to maintain a compact stencil suitable for unstructured grids. We find SIMPLER preconditioning to be robust and efficient for academic test cases and industrial test cases. Compared with the classical SIMPLE solver, SIMPLER preconditioning reduces the number of nonlinear iterations by a factor 5–20 and the CPU time by a factor 2–5 depending on the case. The flow around a ship hull at Reynolds number 2E9, for example, on a grid with cell aspect ratio up to 1:1E6, can be computed in 3 instead of 15 h.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An iterative method for the computation of the response of linearised Navier–Stokes equations to harmonic forcing and application to forced cylinder wakes

The central aim of this paper is the development and application of an efficient, iterative methodology for the computation of the perturbation fields induced by harmonic forcing of the linearised Navier–Stokes equations. The problem is formulated directly in the frequency domain, and the resulting system of equations is solved iteratively until convergence. The method is easily implemented to any implicit code that can solve iteratively the steady‐state Navier–Stokes equations. In this paper, it is applied to investigate the flow around a static cylinder with pulsating approaching flow and a cylinder undergoing forced stream‐wise oscillations. All terms of the perturbation kinetic energy equation are computed, and it is shown that perturbations grow by extracting energy from two sources: the underlying base flow field and the externally provided energy that maintains the imposed oscillation. The periodic drag force acting on the cylinder is also computed, and it is demonstrated that Morrison's equation is a simple model that can estimate with good accuracy the amplitude and phase of this force with respect to the approaching flow. The perturbation fields induced by periodic inlet flow (static cylinder) and forced stream‐wise cylinder oscillation are closely related: the velocity fields are identical in the appropriate reference frames, and a simple expression is derived, which links the pressures in the two flow cases. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.