A high-resolution mapped grid algorithm for compressible multiphase flow problems

We describe a simple mapped-grid approach for the efficient numerical simulation of compressible multiphase flow in general multi-dimensional geometries. The algorithm uses a curvilinear coordinate formulation of the equations that is derived for the Euler equations with the stiffened gas equation of state to ensure the correct fluid mixing when approximating the equations numerically with material interfaces. A γ-based and a α-based model have been described that is an easy extension of the Cartesian coordinates counterpart devised previously by the author [30]. A standard high-resolution mapped grid method in wave-propagation form is employed to solve the proposed multiphase models, giving the natural generalization of the previous one from single-phase to multiphase flow problems. We validate our algorithm by performing numerical tests in two and three dimensions that show second order accurate results for smooth flow problems and also free of spurious oscillations in the pressure for problems with interfaces. This includes also some tests where our quadrilateral-grid results in two dimensions are in direct comparisons with those obtained using a wave-propagation based Cartesian grid embedded boundary method.     

A high-order low-dispersion symmetry-preserving finite-volume method for compressible flow on curvilinear grids

A new high-order finite-volume method is presented that preserves the skew symmetry of convection for the compressible flow equations. The method is intended for Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) of compressible turbulent flows, in particular in the context of hybrid RANS–LES computations. The method is fourth-order accurate and has low numerical dissipation and dispersion. Due to the finite-volume approach, mass, momentum, and total energy are locally conserved. Furthermore, the skew-symmetry preservation implies that kinetic energy, sound-velocity, and internal energy are all locally conserved by convection as well. The method is unique in that all these properties hold on non-uniform, curvilinear, structured grids. Due to the conservation of kinetic energy, there is no spurious production or dissipation of kinetic energy stemming from the discretization of convection. This enhances the numerical stability and reduces the possible interference of numerical errors with the subgrid-scale model. By minimizing the numerical dispersion, the numerical errors are reduced by an order of magnitude compared to a standard fourth-order finite-volume method.     

A high-order cell-centered Lagrangian scheme for compressible fluid flows in two-dimensional cylindrical geometry

The goal of this paper is to present high-order cell-centered schemes for solving the equations of Lagrangian gas dynamics written in cylindrical geometry. A node-based discretization of the numerical fluxes is obtained through the computation of the time rate of change of the cell volume. It allows to derive finite volume numerical schemes that are compatible with the geometric conservation law (GCL). Two discretizations of the momentum equations are proposed depending on the form of the discrete gradient operator. The first one corresponds to the control volume scheme while the second one corresponds to the so-called area-weighted scheme. Both formulations share the same discretization for the total energy equation. In both schemes, fluxes are computed using the same nodal solver which can be viewed as a two-dimensional extension of an approximate Riemann solver. The control volume scheme is conservative for momentum, total energy and satisfies a local entropy inequality in its first-order semi-discrete form. However, it does not preserve spherical symmetry. On the other hand, the area-weighted scheme is conservative for total energy and preserves spherical symmetry for one-dimensional spherical flow on equi-angular polar grid. The two-dimensional high-order extensions of these two schemes are constructed employing the generalized Riemann problem (GRP) in the acoustic approximation. Many numerical tests are presented in order to assess these new schemes. The results obtained for various representative configurations of one and two-dimensional compressible fluid flows show the robustness and the accuracy of our new schemes.     

An accurate adaptive solver for surface-tension-driven interfacial flows

A method combining an adaptive quad/octree spatial discretisation, geometrical Volume-Of-Fluid interface representation, balanced-force continuum-surface-force surface-tension formulation and height-function curvature estimation is presented. The extension of these methods to the quad/octree discretisation allows adaptive variable resolution along the interface and is described in detail. The method is shown to recover exact equilibrium (to machine accuracy) between surface-tension and pressure gradient in the case of a stationary droplet, irrespective of viscosity and spatial resolution. Accurate solutions are obtained for the classical test case of capillary wave oscillations. An application to the capillary breakup of a jet of water in air further illustrates the accuracy and efficiency of the method. The source code of the implementation is freely available as part of the Gerris flow solver.     

The finite volume local evolution Galerkin method for solving the hyperbolic conservation laws

This paper presents a finite volume local evolution Galerkin (FVLEG) scheme for solving the hyperbolic conservation laws. The FVLEG scheme is the simplification of the finite volume evolution Galerkin method (FVEG). In FVEG, a necessary step is to compute the dependent variables at cell interfaces at t_n + τ (0 < τ ? Δt). The FVLEG scheme is constructed by taking τ → 0 in the evolution operators of FVEG. The FVLEG scheme greatly simplifies the evaluation of the numerical fluxes. It is also well suited with the semi-discrete finite volume method, making the flux evaluation being decoupled with the reconstruction procedure while maintaining the genuine multi-dimensional nature of the FVEG methods. The derivation of the FVLEG scheme is presented in detail. The performance of the proposed scheme is studied by solving several test cases. It is shown that FVLEG scheme can obtain very satisfactory numerical results in terms of accuracy and resolution.     

A conservative discrete compatibility-constraint low-Mach pressure-correction algorithm for time-accurate simulations of variable density flows

In this paper, we develop the discrete compatibility-constraint pressure-correction algorithm for transient simulations of variable density flows at low-Mach numbers. The constraint for the velocity field is constructed from a combination of the discrete equations of continuity and scalar (e.g. energy) transport, imposing that the newly predicted state must be compatible, in agreement with the equation of state. This way, mass and scalar conservation are guaranteed and the equation of state is exactly fulfilled at every time step. For comparison reasons, two other types of well-known pressure-correction algorithms are also used. The first class, denoted as continuity-constraint pressure-correction, is based on a constraint for the velocity field that is derived solely from the continuity equation. The second class, denoted as analytical compatibility-constraint pressure-correction, constructs the constraint from an analytical combination of the material derivative of the equation of state and the continuity and scalar equations. The algorithms are tested for three example fluid configurations: a single-fluid ideal gas, a two-fluid inert mixture and a two-fluid reacting mixture. The latter is special in the sense that the equation of state is non-linear and not everywhere differentiable. The continuity-constraint pressure-correction algorithm yields unstable solutions if density ratios are high. The analytical compatibility-constraint pressure-correction algorithm yields stable results, but the predicted states do not correspond to the equation of state. The discrete compatibility-constraint pressure-correction algorithm performs well on all test cases: the simulation results are stable and exactly match the equation of state.     

A second order numerical scheme for the improved Boussinesq equation

A finite-difference scheme arising from the use of rational approximants to the matrix-exponential term in a three-time level recurrence relation is used for the numerical solution of the improved Boussinesq equation (IBq). The resulting linear scheme, which is analyzed for local truncation error and stability, is tested numerically and conclusions with corresponding results known in the bibliography are derived.     

Weak solutions for partial differential equations with source terms: Application to the shallow water equations

Weak solutions of problems with m equations with source terms are proposed using an augmented Riemann solver defined by m + 1 states instead of increasing the number of involved equations. These weak solutions use propagating jump discontinuities connecting the m + 1 states to approximate the Riemann solution. The average of the propagated waves in the computational cell leads to a reinterpretation of the Roe’s approach and in the upwind treatment of the source term of Vázquez-Cendón. It is derived that the numerical scheme can not be formulated evaluating the physical flux function at the position of the initial discontinuities, as usually done in the homogeneous case. Positivity requirements over the values of the intermediate states are the only way to control the global stability of the method. Also it is shown that the definition of well-balanced equilibrium in trivial cases is not sufficient to provide correct results: it is necessary to provide discrete evaluations of the source term that ensure energy dissipating solutions when demanded. The one and two dimensional shallow water equations with source terms due to the bottom topography and friction are presented as case study. The stability region is shown to differ from the one defined for the case without source terms, and it can be derived that the appearance of negative values of the thickness of the water layer in the proximity of the wet/dry front is a particular case, of the wet/wet fronts. The consequence is a severe reduction in the magnitude of the allowable time step size if compared with the one obtained for the homogeneous case. Starting from this result, 1D and 2D numerical schemes are developed for both quadrilateral and triangular grids, enforcing conservation and positivity over the solution, allowing computationally efficient simulations by means of a reconstruction technique for the inner states of the weak solution that allows a recovery of the time step size.     

Conservative numerical simulation of multi-component transport in two-dimensional unsteady shallow water flow

An explicit finite volume model to simulate two-dimensional shallow water flow with multi-component transport is presented. The governing system of coupled conservation laws demands numerical techniques to avoid unrealistic values of the transported scalars that cannot be avoided by decreasing the size of the time step. The presence of non conservative products such as bed slope and friction terms, and other source terms like diffusion and reaction, can make necessary the reduction of the time step given by the Courant number. A suitable flux difference redistribution that prevents instability and ensures conservation at all times is used to deal with the non-conservative terms and becomes necessary in cases of transient boundaries over dry bed. The resulting method belongs to the category of well-balanced Roe schemes and is able to handle steady cases with flow in motion. Test cases with exact solution, including transient boundaries, bed slope, friction, and reaction terms are used to validate the numerical scheme. Laboratory experiments are used to validate the techniques when dealing with complex systems as the κ–?$\kappa ''–''?$ model. The results of the proposed numerical schemes are compared with the ones obtained when using uncoupled formulations.     

Hyperbolic conservation laws on the sphere. A geometry-compatible finite volume scheme

We consider entropy solutions to the initial value problem associated with scalar nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws posed on the two-dimensional sphere. We propose a finite volume scheme which relies on a web-like mesh made of segments of longitude and latitude lines. The structure of the mesh allows for a discrete version of a natural geometric compatibility condition, which arose earlier in the well-posedness theory established by Ben-Artzi and LeFloch. We study here several classes of flux vectors which define the conservation law under consideration. They are based on prescribing a suitable vector field in the Euclidean three-dimensional space and then suitably projecting it on the sphere’s tangent plane; even when the flux vector in the ambient space is constant, the corresponding flux vector is a non-trivial vector field on the sphere. In particular, we construct here “equatorial periodic solutions”, analogous to one-dimensional periodic solutions to one-dimensional conservation laws, as well as a wide variety of stationary (steady state) solutions. We also construct “confined solutions”, which are time-dependent solutions supported in an arbitrarily specified subdomain of the sphere. Finally, representative numerical examples and test cases are presented.     

A new formulation of Kapila’s five-equation model for compressible two-fluid flow,and its numerical treatment

A new formulation of Kapila’s five-equation model for inviscid, non-heat-conducting, compressible two-fluid flow is derived, together with an appropriate numerical method. The new formulation uses flow equations based on conservation laws and exchange laws only. The two fluids exchange momentum and energy, for which exchange terms are derived from physical laws. All equations are written as a single system of equations in integral form. No equation is used to describe the topology of the two-fluid flow. Relations for the Riemann invariants of the governing equations are derived, and used in the construction of an Osher-type approximate Riemann solver. A consistent finite-volume discretization of the exchange terms is proposed. The exchange terms have distinct contributions in the cell interior and at the cell faces. For the exchange-term evaluation at the cell faces, the same Riemann solver as used for the flux evaluation is exploited. Numerical results are presented for two-fluid shock-tube and shock-bubble-interaction problems, the former also for a two-fluid mixture case. All results show good resemblance with reference results.     

A grid based particle method for evolution of open curves and surfaces

We propose a new numerical method for modeling motion of open curves in two dimensions and open surfaces in three dimensions. Following the grid based particle method we proposed in [S. Leung, H.K. Zhao, A grid based particle method for moving interface problems. J. Comput. Phys. 228 (2009) 2993–3024], we represent the open curve or the open surface by meshless Lagrangian particles sampled according to an underlying fixed Eulerian mesh. The underlying grid is used to provide a quasi-uniform sampling and neighboring information for meshless particles. The key idea in the current paper is to represent and to track end-points of the open curve and boundary-points of the open surface explicitly and consistently with interior particles. We apply our algorithms to several applications including spiral crystal growth modeling and image segmentation using active contours.     

Numerical simulations of two-dimensional foam by the immersed boundary method

In this paper, we present an immersed boundary (IB) method to simulate a dry foam, i.e., a foam in which most of the volume is attributed to its gas phase. Dry foam dynamics involves the interaction between a gas and a collection of thin liquid-film internal boundaries that partition the gas into discrete cells or bubbles. The liquid-film boundaries are flexible, contract under the influence of surface tension, and are permeable to the gas, which moves across them by diffusion at a rate proportional to the local pressure difference across the boundary. Such problems are conventionally studied by assuming that the pressure is uniform within each bubble. Here, we introduce instead an IB method that takes into account the non-equilibrium fluid mechanics of the gas. To model gas diffusion across the internal liquid-film boundaries, we allow normal slip between the boundary and the gas at a velocity proportional to the (normal) force generated by the boundary surface tension. We implement this method in the two-dimensional case, and test it by verifying the von Neumann relation, which governs the coarsening of a two-dimensional dry foam. The method is further validated by a convergence study, which confirms its first-order accuracy.     

The finite element method for the coupled Schrödinger-KdV equations

In this Letter, we employ finite element method to study a periodic initial value problem for the coupled Schrödinger-KdV equations. For the case of one dimension, this problem is reduced to a system of ordinary differential equations by using a semi-discrete scheme. The conservation properties of this scheme, the existence and uniqueness of the discrete solutions, and error estimates are presented. In numerical experiments, the resulting system of ordinary differential equations are solved by Runge-Kutta method at each time level. The superior accuracy of this scheme is shown by comparing the numerical solutions with the exact solutions.     

Sinc-collocation method for solving the Blasius equation

Sinc-collocation method is applied for solving Blasius equation which comes from boundary layer equations. It is well known that sinc procedure converges to the solution at an exponential rate. Comparison with Howarth and Asaithambi's numerical solutions reveals that the proposed method is of high accuracy and reduces the solution of Blasius' equation to the solution of a system of algebraic equations.     

A numerical method for simulating the dynamics of 3D axisymmetric vesicles suspended in viscous flows

We extend [Shravan K. Veerapaneni, Denis Gueyffier, Denis Zorin, George Biros, A boundary integral method for simulating the dynamics of inextensible vesicles suspended in a viscous fluid in 2D, Journal of Computational Physics 228(7) (2009) 2334–2353] to the case of three-dimensional axisymmetric vesicles of spherical or toroidal topology immersed in viscous flows. Although the main components of the algorithm are similar in spirit to the 2D case—spectral approximation in space, semi-implicit time-stepping scheme—the main differences are that the bending and viscous force require new analysis, the linearization for the semi-implicit schemes must be rederived, a fully implicit scheme must be used for the toroidal topology to eliminate a CFL-type restriction and a novel numerical scheme for the evaluation of the 3D Stokes single layer potential on an axisymmetric surface is necessary to speed up the calculations. By introducing these novel components, we obtain a time-scheme that experimentally is unconditionally stable, has low cost per time step, and is third-order accurate in time. We present numerical results to analyze the cost and convergence rates of the scheme. To verify the solver, we compare it to a constrained variational approach to compute equilibrium shapes that does not involve interactions with a viscous fluid. To illustrate the applicability of method, we consider a few vesicle-flow interaction problems: the sedimentation of a vesicle, interactions of one and three vesicles with a background Poiseuille flow.     

A method for calculating the surface tension of a droplet in a lattice-gas model with long-range interaction

Since the droplet of the lattice-gas model with long-range interaction is not circular and is determined by the Wulff construction due to surface tension anisotropy, a calculation method of the surface tension of the droplet is proposed in this paper. The calculated surface tension is in good agreement with the surface tension measured by using the Laplace's formula in consideration of the surface thickness. Received 15 March 2000 and Received in final form 31 May 2000     

A theoretical model for the evaluation of measurement uncertainty of a sound level meter calibration by comparison method in an anechoic room

A theoretical model for the evaluation of measurement uncertainty of a sound level meter (hereafter as `SLM') calibration by comparison method in an anechoic room was developed. Through this model, the uncertainties in the semi-automatic calibration and that in the full-automatic calibration were estimated for the recently developed SLM calibration system. In order to estimate the standard uncertainty against the SLM positioning, which is a significant uncertainty component, the sound field curve-fitting formulae were adopted. The validity of the curve-fitting method was proven by the similarity of the spatial distributions of radiation sound field produced by the plane circular piston source and that by the cone shape source. A linear equation was used to fit the measurements of the sound field distribution along the radiation axis. A quadratic equation was used to fit the measurements along the radial axis normal to the radiation axis. The fitting parameters gave us the sensitivity coefficients of the propagation of the uncertainty. In addition, one of the quadratic fitting parameters was found to be a positional uncertainty itself. Using this model, the expanded uncertainties were evaluated for the semi-automatic and full-automatic calibration of SLM.