Simulation of incompressible viscous flows around moving objects by a variant of immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann method

A variant of immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann method (IB‐LBM) is presented in this paper to simulate incompressible viscous flows around moving objects. As compared with the conventional IB‐LBM where the force density is computed explicitly by Hook's law or the direct forcing method and the non‐slip condition is only approximately satisfied, in the present work, the force density term is considered as the velocity correction which is determined by enforcing the non‐slip condition at the boundary. The lift and drag forces on the moving object can be easily calculated via the velocity correction on the boundary points. The capability of the present method for moving objects is well demonstrated through its application to simulate flows around a moving circular cylinder, a rotationally oscillating cylinder, and an elliptic flapping wing. Furthermore, the simulation of flows around a flapping flexible airfoil is carried out to exhibit the ability of the present method for implementing the elastic boundary condition. It was found that under certain conditions, the flapping flexible airfoil can generate larger propulsive force than the flapping rigid airfoil. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation of three‐dimensional flows over moving objects by an improved immersed boundary–lattice Boltzmann method

An improved immersed boundary–lattice Boltzmann method (IB–LBM) developed recently [28] was applied in this work to simulate three‐dimensional (3D) flows over moving objects. By enforcing the non‐slip boundary condition, the method could avoid any flow penetration to the wall. In the developed IB–LBM solver, the flow field is obtained on the non‐uniform mesh by the efficient LBM that is based on the second‐order one‐dimensional interpolation. As a consequence, its coefficients could be computed simply. By simulating flows over a stationary sphere and torus [28] accurately and efficiently, the proposed IB–LBM showed its ability to handle 3D flow problems with curved boundaries. In this paper, we further applied this method to simulate 3D flows around moving boundaries. As a first example, the flow over a rotating sphere was simulated. The obtained results agreed very well with the previous data in the literature. Then, simulation of flow over a rotating torus was conducted. The capability of the improved IB–LBM for solving 3D flows over moving objects with complex geometries was demonstrated via the simulations of fish swimming and dragonfly flight. The numerical results displayed quantitative and qualitative agreement with the date in the literature. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Resolution sensitivity of momentum‐exchange and immersed boundary methods for solid–fluid interaction in the lattice Boltzmann method

In the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), the mechanism of fluid–solid interaction can be effectively captured by appropriately enforcing the no‐slip conditions in shear direction, and bounce‐back of the non‐equilibrium distribution portion in the normal direction at fluid–solid interfaces. Among various solid–fluid interaction schemes being proposed for LBM in recent decades, two simple fluid–solid interaction methods—the momentum exchange algorithm (MEA) and the immersed boundary scheme (IBS)—were developed based on the above concept. In this paper, MEA and IBS are implemented in a D2Q9 LBGK system and applied to measure the wall correction factors of drag force upon a stationary circular particle midway in the Poiseuille channel flow at very low Reynolds number and drag coefficients at low to moderate Reynolds numbers. MEA and IBS are also employed to compare the fluid‐induced torque over the cylinder in the Taylor–Couette flow, and the steady velocity of a particle settling under the influence of gravity inside a tube. The above experiments show that IBS seems to be more accurate and less demanding on lattice resolution. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Flow simulation on moving boundary‐fitted grids and application to fluid–structure interaction problems

We present a method for the parallel numerical simulation of transient three‐dimensional fluid–structure interaction problems. Here, we consider the interaction of incompressible flow in the fluid domain and linear elastic deformation in the solid domain. The coupled problem is tackled by an approach based on the classical alternating Schwarz method with non‐overlapping subdomains, the subproblems are solved alternatingly and the coupling conditions are realized via the exchange of boundary conditions. The elasticity problem is solved by a standard linear finite element method. A main issue is that the flow solver has to be able to handle time‐dependent domains. To this end, we present a technique to solve the incompressible Navier–Stokes equation in three‐dimensional domains with moving boundaries. This numerical method is a generalization of a finite volume discretization using curvilinear coordinates to time‐dependent coordinate transformations. It corresponds to a discretization of the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian formulation of the Navier–Stokes equations. Here the grid velocity is treated in such a way that the so‐called Geometric Conservation Law is implicitly satisfied. Altogether, our approach results in a scheme which is an extension of the well‐known MAC‐method to a staggered mesh in moving boundary‐fitted coordinates which uses grid‐dependent velocity components as the primary variables. To validate our method, we present some numerical results which show that second‐order convergence in space is obtained on moving grids. Finally, we give the results of a fully coupled fluid–structure interaction problem. It turns out that already a simple explicit coupling with one iteration of the Schwarz method, i.e. one solution of the fluid problem and one solution of the elasticity problem per time step, yields a convergent, simple, yet efficient overall method for fluid–structure interaction problems. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of LBGK and incompressible LBGK‐based lattice Boltzmann flux solvers for simulation of incompressible flows

This paper presents lattice Boltzmann Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook (LBGK) model and incompressible LBGK model‐based lattice Boltzmann flux solvers (LBFS) for simulation of incompressible flows. LBFS applies the finite volume method to directly discretize the governing differential equations recovered by lattice Boltzmann equations. The fluxes of LBFS at each cell interface are evaluated by local reconstruction of lattice Boltzmann solution. Because LBFS is applied locally at each cell interface independently, it removes the major drawbacks of conventional lattice Boltzmann method such as lattice uniformity, coupling between mesh spacing, and time interval. With LBGK and incompressible LBGK models, LBFS are examined by simulating decaying vortex flow, polar cavity flow, plane Poiseuille flow, Womersley flow, and double shear flows. The obtained numerical results show that both the LBGK and incompressible LBGK‐based LBFS have the second order of accuracy and high computational efficiency on nonuniform grids. Furthermore, LBFS with both LBGK models are also stable for the double shear flows at a high Reynolds number of 10⁵. However, for the pressure‐driven plane Poiseuille flow, when the pressure gradient is increased, the relative error associated with LBGK model grows faster than that associated with incompressible LBGK model. It seems that the incompressible LBGK‐based LBFS is more suitable for simulating incompressible flows with large pressure gradients. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation of two‐phase flow with moving immersed boundaries

A two‐dimensional multi‐phase model for immiscible binary fluid flow including moving immersed objects is presented. The fluid motion is described by the incompressible Navier–Stokes equation coupled with a phase‐field model based on van der Waals' free energy density and the Cahn–Hilliard equation. A new phase‐field boundary condition was implemented with minimization of the free energy in a direct way, to specifically improve the physical behavior of the contact line dynamics for moving immersed objects. Numerical stability and execution time were significantly improved by the use of the new boundary condition. Convergence toward the analytical solution was demonstrated for equilibrium contact angle, the Lucas–Washburn theory and Stefan's problem. The proposed model may be used for multi‐phase flow problems with moving boundaries of complex geometry, such as the penetration of fluid into a deformable, porous medium. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A comparative study of direct‐forcing immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann methods for stationary complex boundaries

In this study, we assess several interface schemes for stationary complex boundary flows under the direct‐forcing immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann methods (IB‐LBM) based on a split‐forcing lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE). Our strategy is to couple various interface schemes, which were adopted in the previous direct‐forcing immersed boundary methods (IBM), with the split‐forcing LBE, which enables us to directly use the direct‐forcing concept in the lattice Boltzmann calculation algorithm with a second‐order accuracy without involving the Navier–Stokes equation. In this study, we investigate not only common diffuse interface schemes but also a sharp interface scheme. For the diffuse interface scheme, we consider explicit and implicit interface schemes. In the calculation of velocity interpolation and force distribution, we use the 2‐ and 4‐point discrete delta functions, which give the second‐order approximation. For the sharp interface scheme, we deal with the exterior sharp interface scheme, where we impose the force density on exterior (solid) nodes nearest to the boundary. All tested schemes show a second‐order overall accuracy when the simulation results of the Taylor–Green decaying vortex are compared with the analytical solutions. It is also confirmed that for stationary complex boundary flows, the sharper the interface scheme, the more accurate the results are. In the simulation of flows past a circular cylinder, the results from each interface scheme are comparable to those from other corresponding numerical schemes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A coupled immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann method with smoothed point interpolation method for fluid‐structure interaction problems

The immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann method has been verified to be an effective tool for fluid‐structure interaction simulation associated with thin and flexible bodies. The newly developed smoothed point interpolation method (S‐PIM) can handle the largely deformable solids owing to its softened model stiffness and insensitivity to mesh distortion. In this work, a novel coupled method has been proposed by combining the immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann method with the S‐PIM for fluid‐structure interaction problems with large‐displacement solids. The proposed method preserves the simplicity of the lattice Boltzmann method for fluid solvers, utilizes the S‐PIM to establish the realistic constitutive laws for nonlinear solids, and avoids mesh regeneration based on the frame of the immersed boundary method. Both two‐ and three‐dimensional numerical examples have been carried out to validate the accuracy, convergence, and stability of the proposed method in consideration of comparative results with referenced solutions.     

A meshless finite point method for three‐dimensional analysis of compressible flow problems involving moving boundaries and adaptivity

A finite point method for solving compressible flow problems involving moving boundaries and adaptivity is presented. The numerical methodology is based on an upwind‐biased discretization of the Euler equations, written in arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian form and integrated in time by means of a dual‐time steeping technique. In order to exploit the meshless potential of the method, a domain deformation approach based on the spring network analogy is implemented, and h‐adaptivity is also employed in the computations. Typical movable boundary problems in transonic flow regime are solved to assess the performance of the proposed technique. In addition, an application to a fluid–structure interaction problem involving static aeroelasticity illustrates the capability of the method to deal with practical engineering analyses. The computational cost and multi‐core performance of the proposed technique is also discussed through the examples provided. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An improved immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann method based on force correction technique

In this paper, an improved immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann method based on the force correction technique is presented for fluid‐structure interaction problems including the moving boundary interfaces. By introducing a force correction coefficient, the non‐slip boundary conditions are much better enforced compared with the conventional immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann methods. In addition, the implicit and iterative calculations are avoided; thus, the computational cost is reduced dramatically. Several numerical experiments are carried out to test the efficiency of the method. It is found that the method has the second‐order accuracy, and the non‐slip boundary conditions are enforced indeed. The numerical results also show that the present method is a suitable tool for fluid‐structure interaction problems involving complex moving boundaries.     

Three‐dimensional immersed boundary conditions for moving solids in the lattice‐Boltzmann method

This paper establishes the range of validity for a previously published three‐dimensional moving solid boundary condition for the lattice‐Boltzmann method. This method was reasonably formulated from a mass and momentum balance perspective, but was only verified for a small range of (primarily two‐dimensional) problems. One of the advantages of this boundary condition is that it offers resolution at the sub‐grid scale, allowing for accurate and stable calculation of the force and torque for solids which are moving through a lattice, even for small solid sizes relative to the computational grid size. We verify the boundary condition for creeping flows by comparison to analytical solutions that include both the force and the torque on fixed and moving spheres, and then follow this with comparisons to experimental and empirical results for both fixed as well moving spheres in inertial flows. Finally, we compare simulation results to numerical results of other investigators for the settling of an offset sphere and the drafting–kissing–tumbling of two sedimenting spheres. We found that an accurate calculation of the collision‐operator weighting used to obtain sub‐grid‐scale resolution was necessary in order to prevent spikes in the velocities, forces, and moments when solid objects cross‐computational cells. The wide range of comparisons collected and presented in this paper can be used to establish the validity of other numerical models, in addition to the one examined here. Published in 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A direct‐forcing pressure‐based lattice Boltzmann method for solving fluid–particle interaction problems

A direct‐forcing immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann method (IB–LBM) is developed to simulate fluid–particle interaction problems. This method uses the pressure‐based LBM to solve the incompressible flow field and the immersed boundary method to handle the fluid–particle interactions. The pressure‐based LBM uses the pressure distribution functions instead of the density distribution functions as the independent dynamic variables. The main idea is to explicitly eliminate the compressible effect due to the density fluctuation. In the IB method, a direct‐forcing method is introduced to capture the particle motion. It directly computes an IB force density at each lattice grid from the differences between the pressure distribution functions obtained by the LBM and the equilibrium pressure distribution functions computed from the particle velocity. By applying this direct‐forcing method, the IB–LBM becomes a purely LBM version. Also, by applying the Gauss theorem, the formulas for computing the force and the torque acting on the particle from the flows are derived from the volume integrals over the particle volume instead of from the surface integrals over the particle surface. The order of accuracy of the IB–LBM is demonstrated on the errors of velocity field, wall stress, and gradients of velocity and pressure. As a demonstration of the efficiency and capabilities of the new method, sedimentation of a large number of spherical particles in an enclosure is simulated. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Projection‐based variational multiscale method for incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in time‐dependent domains

A variational multiscale method for computations of incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in time‐dependent domains is presented. The proposed scheme is a three‐scale variational multiscale method with a projection‐based scale separation that uses an additional tensor valued space for the large scales. The resolved large and small scales are computed in a coupled way with the effects of unresolved scales confined to the resolved small scales. In particular, the Smagorinsky eddy viscosity model is used to model the effects of unresolved scales. The deforming domain is handled by the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian approach and by using an elastic mesh update technique with a mesh‐dependent stiffness. Further, the choice of orthogonal finite element basis function for the resolved large scale leads to a computationally efficient scheme. Simulations of flow around a static beam attached to a square base, around an oscillating beam and around a plunging aerofoil are presented. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analytical and numerical studies of the boundary slip in the immersed boundary‐thermal lattice Boltzmann method

We analytically and numerically investigate the boundary slip, including the velocity slip and the temperature jump, in immersed boundary‐thermal lattice Boltzmann methods (IB‐TLBMs) with the two‐relaxation‐time collision operator. We derive the theoretical equation for the relaxation parameters considering the effect of the advection velocity on the temperature jump of the IB‐TLBMs. The analytical and numerical solutions demonstrate that the proposed iterative correction methods without the computational cost of the sparse matrix solver reduce the boundary slip and boundary‐value deviation as effectively as the implicit correction method for any relaxation time. Because the commonly used multi‐direct forcing method does not consider the contributions of the body force to the momentum flux, it cannot completely eliminate the boundary slip because of the numerical instability for a long relaxation time. Both types of proposed iterative correction methods are more numerically stable than the implicit correction method. In simulations of flow past a circular cylinder and of natural convection, the present iterative correction methods yield adequate results without the errors of the velocity slip, the temperature jump, and the boundary‐value deviation for any relaxation time parameters and for any number of Lagrangian points per length. The combination of the present methods and the two‐relaxation‐time collision operator is suitable for simulating fluid flow with thermal convection in the multiblock method in which the relaxation time increases in inverse proportion to the grid size.     

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.     

High‐order time integrators for front‐tracking finite‐element analysis of viscous free‐surface flows

This paper proposes implicit Runge–Kutta (IRK) time integrators to improve the accuracy of a front‐tracking finite‐element method for viscous free‐surface flow predictions. In the front‐tracking approach, the modeling equations must be solved on a moving domain, which is usually performed using an arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) frame of reference. One of the main difficulties associated with the ALE formulation is related to the accuracy of the time integration procedure. Indeed, most formulations reported in the literature are limited to second‐order accurate time integrators at best. In this paper, we present a finite‐element ALE formulation in which a consistent evaluation of the mesh velocity and its divergence guarantees satisfaction of the discrete geometrical conservation law. More importantly, it also ensures that the high‐order fixed mesh temporal accuracy of time integrators is preserved on deforming grids. It is combined with the use of a family of L‐stable IRK time integrators for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations to yield high‐order time‐accurate free‐surface simulations. This is demonstrated in the paper using the method of manufactured solution in space and time as recommended in Verification and Validation. In particular, we report up to fifth‐order accuracy in time. The proposed free‐surface front‐tracking approach is then validated against cases of practical interest such as sloshing in a tank, solitary waves propagation, and coupled interaction between a wave and a submerged cylinder. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the Fourier representation of elastic immersed boundaries

This paper presents an efficient treatment of fluid/elastic–structure interactions that takes advantage of the Fourier representation of immersed boundaries. We assume that the fluid is incompressible with uniform density and viscosity and that the immersed boundaries have fixed topologies. These elastic bodies can have large deformations and evolve anywhere within the fluid domain. They may be thick and are assumed to be piecewise smooth. We process the fluid–structure coupling with the immersed boundary method of C. S. Peskin. We can take advantage of the Fourier representation of the immersed bodies in many ways. First, the use of Fourier expansions allows us to filter out the high frequencies of the spatial oscillations along the boundary vectors. Second, we can work with a smaller number of boundary points to represent the interface, while preserving the same level of accuracy as long as enough points are used in the force spreading process. Finally, the harmonic information gathered by the Fourier coefficients is useful to control some global properties of the immersed boundaries. For example, we introduce a technique that corrects the volume conservation issue of closed immersed boundaries by performing constrained optimization in the Fourier space. We illustrate our method with two applications: one is a suspension flow with a large number of elastic ‘bubbles’, the other is an interesting case of artificial motion based on inertia rather than on flapping fins or flagella. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A hybrid immersed‐boundary and multi‐block lattice Boltzmann method for simulating fluid and moving‐boundaries interactions

A numerical method is developed for modelling the interactions between incompressible viscous fluid and moving boundaries. The principle of this method is introducing the immersed‐boundary concept in the framework of the lattice Boltzmann method, and improving the accuracy and efficiency of the simulation by refining the mesh near moving boundaries. Besides elastic boundary with a constitutive law, the method can also efficiently simulate solid moving‐boundary interacting with fluid by employing the direct forcing technique. The method is validated by the simulations of flow past a circular cylinder, two cylinders moving with respect to each other and flow around a hovering wing. The versatility of the method is demonstrated by the numerical studies including elastic filament flapping in the wake of a cylinder and fish‐like bodies swimming in quiescent fluid. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.