Constrained moving least‐squares immersed boundary method for fluid‐structure interaction analysis

A numerical method is presented for the analysis of interactions of inviscid and compressible flows with arbitrarily shaped stationary or moving rigid solids. The fluid equations are solved on a fixed rectangular Cartesian grid by using a higher‐order finite difference method based on the fifth‐order WENO scheme. A constrained moving least‐squares sharp interface method is proposed to enforce the Neumann‐type boundary conditions on the fluid‐solid interface by using a penalty term, while the Dirichlet boundary conditions are directly enforced. The solution of the fluid flow and the solid motion equations is advanced in time by staggerly using, respectively, the third‐order Runge‐Kutta and the implicit Newmark integration schemes. The stability and the robustness of the proposed method have been demonstrated by analyzing 5 challenging problems. For these problems, the numerical results have been found to agree well with their analytical and numerical solutions available in the literature. Effects of the support domain size and values assigned to the penalty parameter on the stability and the accuracy of the present method are also discussed.     

High‐order implicit Runge–Kutta time integrators for fluid‐structure interactions

This paper presents an approach to develop high‐order, temporally accurate, finite element approximations of fluid‐structure interaction (FSI) problems. The proposed numerical method uses an implicit monolithic formulation in which the same implicit Runge–Kutta (IRK) temporal integrator is used for the incompressible flow, the structural equations undergoing large displacements, and the coupling terms at the fluid‐solid interface. In this context of stiff interaction problems, the fully implicit one‐step approach presented is an original alternative to traditional multistep or explicit one‐step finite element approaches. The numerical scheme takes advantage of an arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian formulation of the equations designed to satisfy the geometric conservation law and to guarantee that the high‐order temporal accuracy of the IRK time integrators observed on fixed meshes is preserved on arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian deforming meshes. A thorough review of the literature reveals that in most previous works, high‐order time accuracy (higher than second order) is seldom achieved for FSI problems. We present thorough time‐step refinement studies for a rigid oscillating‐airfoil on deforming meshes to confirm the time accuracy on the extracted aerodynamics reactions of IRK time integrators up to fifth order. Efficiency of the proposed approach is then tested on a stiff FSI problem of flow‐induced vibrations of a flexible strip. The time‐step refinement studies indicate the following: stability of the proposed approach is always observed even with large time step and spurious oscillations on the structure are avoided without added damping. While higher order IRK schemes require more memory than classical schemes (implicit Euler), they are faster for a given level of temporal accuracy in two dimensions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An implicit pseudo‐spectral multi‐domain method for the simulation of incompressible flows

A pseudo‐spectral method for the solution of incompressible flow problems based on an iterative solver involving an implicit treatment of linearized convective terms is presented. The method allows the treatment of moderately complex geometries by means of a multi‐domain approach and it is able to cope with non‐constant fluid properties and non‐orthogonal problem domains. In addition, the fully implicit scheme yields improved stability properties as opposed to semi‐implicit schemes commonly employed. Key components of the method are a Chebyshev collocation discretization, a special pressure–correction scheme, and a restarted GMRES method with a preconditioner derived from a fast direct solver. The performance of the proposed method is investigated by considering several numerical examples of different complexity, and also includes comparisons to alternative solution approaches based on finite‐volume discretizations. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A simple numerical technique for transient creep flows with free surfaces

A simple, but powerful iterative technique is presented for the numerical solution of the time-dependent flow of an incompressible viscous fluid with or without a free surface. The usual numerical stability restrictions related to the viscous acceleration terms are avoided using standard implicit differencing techniques. The properties and accuracy of the method are illustrated by several calculational examples.     

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.     

Implicit time accurate simulation of unsteady flow

Implicit time integration was studied in the context of unsteady shock‐boundary layer interaction flow. With an explicit second‐order Runge–Kutta scheme, a reference solution to compare with the implicit second‐order Crank–Nicolson scheme was determined. The time step in the explicit scheme is restricted by both temporal accuracy as well as stability requirements, whereas in the A‐stable implicit scheme, the time step has to obey temporal resolution requirements and numerical convergence conditions. The non‐linear discrete equations for each time step are solved iteratively by adding a pseudo‐time derivative. The quasi‐Newton approach is adopted and the linear systems that arise are approximately solved with a symmetric block Gauss–Seidel solver. As a guiding principle for properly setting numerical time integration parameters that yield an efficient time accurate capturing of the solution, the global error caused by the temporal integration is compared with the error resulting from the spatial discretization. Focus is on the sensitivity of properties of the solution in relation to the time step. Numerical simulations show that the time step needed for acceptable accuracy can be considerably larger than the explicit stability time step; typical ratios range from 20 to 80. At large time steps, convergence problems that are closely related to a highly complex structure of the basins of attraction of the iterative method may occur. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulating surface tension with smoothed particle hydrodynamics

A method for simulating two‐phase flows including surface tension is presented. The approach is based upon smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). The fully Lagrangian nature of SPH maintains sharp fluid–fluid interfaces without employing high‐order advection schemes or explicit interface reconstruction. Several possible implementations of surface tension force are suggested and compared. The numerical stability of the method is investigated and optimal choices for numerical parameters are identified. Comparisons with a grid‐based volume of fluid method for two‐dimensional flows are excellent. The methods presented here apply to problems involving interfaces of arbitrary shape undergoing fragmentation and coalescence within a two‐phase system and readily extend to three‐dimensional problems. Boundary conditions at a solid surface, high viscosity and density ratios, and the simulation of free‐surface flows are not addressed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparison of implicit and explicit AUSM‐family schemes for compressible multiphase flows

This paper makes the first attempt of extending implicit AUSM‐family schemes to multiphase flow simulations. Water faucet, air–water shock tube and oscillating manometer problems are used as benchmark tests with the generic four‐equation two‐fluid model. For solving the equations implicitly, Newton's method along with a sparse matrix solver (UMFPACK solver) is employed, and the numerical Jacobian matrix is calculated. Comparison between implicit and explicit AUSM‐family schemes is presented, indicating that similarly accurate results are obtained with both schemes. Furthermore, the water faucet problem is solved using both staggered and collocated grids. This investigation helps integrate high‐resolution schemes into staggered‐grid‐based computational algorithms. The influence of the interface pressure correction on the simulation results is also examined. Results show that the interfacial pressure correction introduces numerical dissipation. However, this dissipation cannot eliminate the overshoots because of the incompatibility of numerical discretization of the conservative and non‐conservative terms in the governing equations. The comparison of CPU time between implicit and explicit schemes is also studied, indicating that the implicit scheme is capable of improving the computational efficiency over its explicit counterpart. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Moving immersed boundary method

A novel implicit immersed boundary method of high accuracy and efficiency is presented for the simulation of incompressible viscous flow over complex stationary or moving solid boundaries. A boundary force is often introduced in many immersed boundary methods to mimic the presence of solid boundary, such that the overall simulation can be performed on a simple Cartesian grid. The current method inherits this idea and considers the boundary force as a Lagrange multiplier to enforce the no‐slip constraint at the solid boundary, instead of applying constitutional relations for rigid bodies. Hence excessive constraint on the time step is circumvented, and the time step only depends on the discretization of fluid Navier‐Stokes equations, like the CFL condition in present work. To determine the boundary force, an additional moving force equation is derived. The dimension of this derived system is proportional to the number of Lagrangian points describing the solid boundaries, which makes the method very suitable for moving boundary problems since the time for matrix update and system solving is not significant. The force coefficient matrix is made symmetric and positive definite so that the conjugate gradient method can solve the system quickly. The proposed immersed boundary method is incorporated into the fluid solver with a second‐order accurate projection method as a plug‐in. The overall scheme is handled under an efficient fractional step framework, namely, prediction, forcing, and projection. Various simulations are performed to validate current method, and the results compare well with previous experimental and numerical studies.     

An efficient operator splitting scheme for three-dimensional hydrodynamic computations

A new efficient numerical method for three-dimensional hydrodynamic computations is presented and discussed in this paper. The method is based on the operator splitting method and combined with Eulerian–Lagrangian method, finite element method and finite difference method. To increase the efficiency and stability of the numerical solutions, the operator splitting method is employed to partition the momentum equations into three parts, according to physical phenomena. A time step is divided into three time substeps. In the first substep, advection and Coriolis force are solved using the explicit Eulerian–Lagrangian method. In the second substep, horizontal diffusion is approximated by implicit FEM in each horizontal layer. In the last substep, the continuity equation is solved by implicit FEM, and vertical diffusion and pressure gradient are discretized by implicit FDM in each nodal column. The stability analysis shows that this method is unconditionally stable. A number of numerical experiments have been performed. The results simulated by the present scheme agree well with analytical solutions and the other documented model results. The method is efficient for 3D shallow water flow computations and fully fits complicated configurations. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of temporal and spatial high‐order schemes for two‐fluid seven‐equation two‐pressure model and its applications in two‐phase flow benchmark problems

Current existing main nuclear thermal‐hydraulics (T‐H) system analysis codes, such as RALAP5, TRACE, and CATHARE, play a crucial role in the nuclear engineering field for the design and safety analysis of nuclear reactor systems. However, two‐fluid model used in these T‐H system analysis codes is ill posed, easily leading to numerical oscillations, and the classical first‐order methods for temporal and special discretization are widely employed for numerical simulations, yielding excessive numerical diffusion. Two‐fluid seven‐equation two‐pressure model is of particular interest due to the inherent well‐posed advantage. Moreover, high‐order accuracy schemes have also attracted great attention to overcome the challenge of serious numerical diffusion induced by low‐order time and space schemes for accurately simulating nuclear T‐H problems. In this paper, the semi‐implicit solution algorithm with high‐order accuracy in space and time is developed for this well‐posed two‐fluid model and the robustness and accuracy are verified and assessed against several important two‐phase flow benchmark tests in the nuclear engineering T‐H field, which include two linear advection problems, the oscillation problem of the liquid column, the Ransom water faucet problem, the reversed water faucet problem, and the two‐phase shock tube problem. The following conclusions are achieved. (1) The proposed semi‐implicit solution algorithm is robust in solving two‐phase flows, even for fast transients and discontinuous solutions. (2) High‐order schemes in both time and space could prevent excessive numerical diffusion effectively and the numerical simulation results are more accurate than those of first‐order time and space schemes, which demonstrates the advantage of using high‐order schemes.     

Accuracy and stability analysis of a second‐order time‐accurate loosely coupled partitioned algorithm for transient conjugate heat transfer problems

In this paper, a second‐order time‐accurate loosely coupled partitioned algorithm is presented for solving transient thermal coupling of solids and fluids, also referred to by conjugate heat transfer. The Crank–Nicolson scheme is used for time integration. The accuracy and stability of the loosely coupled solution algorithm are analyzed analytically. Based on the accuracy analysis, the design order of the time integration scheme is preserved by following a predictor (implicit)–corrector (explicit) approach. Hence, the need to perform an additional implicit solve (a subiteration) at each time step is avoided. The analytical stability analysis shows that by using the Crank–Nicolson scheme for time integration, the partitioned algorithm is unstable for large Fourier numbers, unlike the monolithic approach. Accordingly, using the stability analysis, a stability criterion is obtained for the Crank–Nicolson scheme that imposes restriction on Δt given the material properties and mesh spacings of the coupled domains. As the ratio of the thermal effusivities of the coupled domains reaches unity, the stability of the algorithm reduces. To demonstrate the applicability of the algorithm, a numerical example is considered (an unsteady conjugate natural convection in an enclosure). Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A semi‐implicit numerical method for the free‐surface Navier–Stokes equations

Semi‐implicit methods are known for being the basis of simple, efficient, accurate, and stable numerical algorithms for simulating a large variety of geophysical free‐surface flows. Geophysical flows are typically characterized by having a small vertical scale as compared with their horizontal extents. Hence, the hydrostatic approximation often applies, and the free surface can be conveniently represented by a single‐valued function of the horizontal coordinates. In the present investigation, semi‐implicit methods are extended to complex free‐surface flows that are governed by the full incompressible Navier–Stokes equations and are delimited by solid boundaries and arbitrarily shaped free‐surfaces. The primary dependent variables are the velocity components and the pressure. Finite difference equations for momentum, and a finite volume discretization for continuity, are derived in such a fashion that, after simple manipulation, the resulting pressure equation yields a well‐posed piecewise linear system from which both the pressure and the fluid volume within each computational cell are naturally derived. This system is efficiently solved by a nested Newton type iterative scheme, and the resulting fluid volumes are assured to be nonnegative and bounded from above by the available cell volumes. The time step size is not restricted by stability conditions dictated by surface wave speed, but can be freely chosen just to achieve the desired accuracy. Several examples illustrate the model applicability to a large range of complex free‐surface flows and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On spurious behavior of CFD simulations1

Spurious behavior in underresolved grids and/or semi‐implicit temporal discretizations for four computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are studied. The numerical simulations consist of (a) a 1‐D chemically relaxed non‐equilibrium flow model, (b) the direct numerical simulation (DNS) of 2D incompressible flow over a backward facing step, (c) a loosely coupled approach for a 2D fluid–structure interaction, and (d) a 3D unsteady compressible flow simulation of vortex breakdown on delta wings. These examples were chosen based on their non‐apparent spurious behaviors that were difficult to detect without extensive grid and/or temporal refinement studies and without some knowledge from dynamical systems theory. Studies revealed the various possible dangers of misinterpreting numerical simulation of realistic complex flows that are constrained by available computing power. In large scale computations, underresolved grids, semi‐implicit procedures, loosely coupled implicit procedures, and insufficiently long‐time integration in DNS are most often unavoidable. Consequently, care must be taken in both computation and in interpretation of the numerical data. The results presented confirm the important role that dynamical systems theory can play in the understanding of the non‐linear behavior of numerical algorithms and in aiding the identification of the sources of numerical uncertainties in CFD. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Characteristic Galerkin method for convection-diffusion equations and implicit algorithm using precise integration

This paper presents a finite element procedure for solving transient, multidimensional convection-diffusion equations. The procedure is based on the characteristic Galerkin method with an implicit algorithm using precise integration method. With the operator splitting procedure, the precise integration method is introduced to determine the material derivative in the convection-diffusion equation, consequently, the physical quantities of material points. An implicit algorithm with a combination of both the precise and the traditional numerical integration procedures in time domain in the Lagrange coordinates for the characteristic Galerkin method is formulated. The stability analysis of the algorithm shows that the unconditional stability of present implicit algorithm is enhanced as compared with that of the traditional implicit numerical integration procedure. The numerical results validate the presented method in solving convection-diffusion equations. As compared with SUPG method and explicit characteristic Galerkin method, the present method gives the results with higher accuracy and better stability. The project sponsored by the State Scientific and Technological Commission of China through “China State Key Project: the Theory and Methodology for Scientific and Engineering Computations with Large Scale”, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the European Commission Research Project CI1^*CT94-0014.     

A modular,operator‐splitting scheme for fluid–structure interaction problems with thick structures

We present an operator‐splitting scheme for fluid–structure interaction (FSI) problems in hemodynamics, where the thickness of the structural wall is comparable to the radius of the cylindrical fluid domain. The equations of linear elasticity are used to model the structure, while the Navier–Stokes equations for an incompressible viscous fluid are used to model the fluid. The operator‐splitting scheme, based on the Lie splitting, separates the elastodynamics structure problem from a fluid problem in which structure inertia is included to achieve unconditional stability. We prove energy estimates associated with unconditional stability of this modular scheme for the full nonlinear FSI problem defined on a moving domain, without requiring any sub‐iterations within time steps. Two numerical examples are presented, showing excellent agreement with the results of monolithic schemes. First‐order convergence in time is shown numerically. Modularity, unconditional stability without temporal sub‐iterations, and simple implementation are the features that make this operator‐splitting scheme particularly appealing for multi‐physics problems involving FSI. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A fast method for solving fluid–structure interaction problems numerically

The paper presents a semi‐implicit algorithm for solving an unsteady fluid–structure interaction problem. The algorithm for solving numerically the fluid–structure interaction problems was obtained by combining the backward Euler scheme with a semi‐implicit treatment of the convection term for the Navier–Stokes equations and an implicit centered scheme for the structure equations. The structure is governed either by the linear elasticity or by the non‐linear St Venant–Kirchhoff elasticity models. At each time step, the position of the interface is predicted in an explicit way. Then, an optimization problem must be solved, such that the continuity of the velocity as well as the continuity of the stress hold at the interface. During the Broyden, Fletcher, Goldforb, Shano (BFGS) iterations for solving the optimization problem, the fluid mesh does not move, which reduces the computational effort. The term ‘semi‐implicit’ used for the fully algorithm means that the interface position is computed explicitly, while the displacement of the structure, velocity and the pressure of the fluid are computed implicitly. Numerical results are presented. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time‐accurate stabilized finite‐element model for weakly nonlinear and weakly dispersive water waves

Introduction of a time‐accurate stabilized finite‐element approximation for the numerical investigation of weakly nonlinear and weakly dispersive water waves is presented in this paper. To make the time approximation match the order of accuracy of the spatial representation of the linear triangular elements by the Galerkin finite‐element method, the fourth‐order time integration of implicit multistage Padé method is used for the development of the numerical scheme. The streamline‐upwind Petrov–Galerkin (SUPG) method with crosswind diffusion is employed to stabilize the scheme and suppress the spurious oscillations, usually common in the numerical computation of convection‐dominated flow problems. The performance of numerical stabilization and accuracy is addressed. Treatments of various boundary conditions, including the open boundary conditions, the perfect reflecting boundary conditions along boundaries with irregular geometry, are also described. Numerical results showing the comparisons with analytical solutions, experimental measurements, and other published numerical results are presented and discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A mass‐conservative staggered immersed boundary model for solving the shallow water equations on complex geometries

In this work, an approach is proposed for solving the 3D shallow water equations with embedded boundaries that are not aligned with the underlying horizontal Cartesian grid. A hybrid cut‐cell/ghost‐cell method is used together with a direction‐splitting implicit solver: Ghost cells are used for the momentum equations in order to prescribe the correct boundary condition at the immersed boundary, while cut cells are used in the continuity equation in order to conserve mass. The resulting scheme is robust, does not suffer any time step limitation for small cut cells, and conserves fluid mass up to machine precision. Moreover, the solver displays a second‐order spatial accuracy, both globally and locally. Comparisons with analytical solutions and reference numerical solutions on curvilinear grids confirm the quality of the method. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic parallel Galerkin domain decomposition procedures with grid modification for parabolic equation

Dynamic parallel Galerkin domain decomposition procedures with grid modification for semi‐linear parabolic equation are given. These procedures allow one to apply different domain decompositions, different grids, and interpolation polynomials on the sub‐domains at different time levels when necessary, in order to capture time‐changing localized phenomena, such as, propagating fronts or moving layers. They rely on an implicit Galerkin method in the sub‐domains and simple explicit flux calculation on the inter‐domain boundaries by integral mean method to predict the inner‐boundary conditions. Thus, the parallelism can be achieved by these procedures. These procedures are conservative both in the sub‐domains and across inter‐boundaries. The explicit nature of the flux prediction induces a time step limitation that is necessary to preserve stability, but this constraint is less severe than that for a fully explicit method. Stability and convergence analysis in L²‐norm are derived for these procedures. The experimental results are presented to confirm the theoretical results. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.