Adaptive moving mesh methods for two-dimensional resistive magneto-hydrodynamic PDE models

An adaptive moving mesh technique is applied to magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD) model problem. The moving mesh strategy is based on the approach proposed in Li et al. [Li R, Tang T, Zhang P. Moving mesh methods in multiple dimensions based on harmonic maps. J Comput Phys 2001;170:562-88] to separate the mesh-moving and PDE evolution at each time step. The Magneto-hydrodynamic equations are discretized by a finite-volume method in space, and the mesh-moving part is realized by solving the Euler-Lagrange equations to minimize a certain variation with the directional splitting monitor function. A conservative interpolation is used to redistribute the numerical solutions on the new meshes. Numerical results demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.     

A pressure-correction method and its applications on an unstructured Chimera grid

In this paper, an unstructured Chimera mesh method is used to compute incompressible flow around a rotating body. To implement the pressure correction algorithm on unstructured overlapping sub-grids, a novel interpolation scheme for pressure correction is proposed. This indirect interpolation scheme can ensure a tight coupling of pressure between sub-domains. A moving-mesh finite volume approach is used to treat the rotating sub-domain and the governing equations are formulated in an inertial reference frame. Since the mesh that surrounds the rotating body undergoes only solid body rotation and the background mesh remains stationary, no mesh deformation is encountered in the computation. As a benefit from the utilization of an inertial frame, tensorial transformation for velocity is not needed. Three numerical simulations are successfully performed. They include flow over a fixed circular cylinder, flow over a rotating circular cylinder and flow over a rotating elliptic cylinder. These numerical examples demonstrate the capability of the current scheme in handling moving boundaries. The numerical results are in good agreement with experimental and computational data in literature.     

A Projection Method for the Conservative Discretizations of Parabolic Partial Differential Equations

We present a projection method for the conservative discretizations of parabolic partial differential equations. When we solve a system of discrete equations arising from the finite difference discretization of the PDE, we can use iterative algorithms such as conjugate gradient, generalized minimum residual, and multigrid methods. An iterative method is a numerical approach that generates a sequence of improved approximate solutions for a system of equations. We repeat the iterative algorithm until a numerical solution is within a specified tolerance. Therefore, even though the discretization is conservative, the actual numerical solution obtained from an iterative method is not conservative. We propose a simple projection method which projects the non-conservative numerical solution into a conservative one by using the original scheme. Numerical experiments demonstrate the proposed scheme does not degrade the accuracy of the original numerical scheme and it preserves the conservative quantity within rounding errors.     

Second-Order Accurate Godunov Scheme for Multicomponent Flows on Moving Triangular Meshes

This paper presents a second-order accurate adaptive Godunov method for two-dimensional (2D) compressible multicomponent flows, which is an extension of the previous adaptive moving mesh method of Tang et al. (SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 41:487–515, 2003) to unstructured triangular meshes in place of the structured quadrangular meshes. The current algorithm solves the governing equations of 2D multicomponent flows and the finite-volume approximations of the mesh equations by a fully conservative, second-order accurate Godunov scheme and a relaxed Jacobi-type iteration, respectively. The geometry-based conservative interpolation is employed to remap the solutions from the old mesh to the newly resulting mesh, and a simple slope limiter and a new monitor function are chosen to obtain oscillation-free solutions, and track and resolve both small, local, and large solution gradients automatically. Several numerical experiments are conducted to demonstrate robustness and efficiency of the proposed method. They are a quasi-2D Riemann problem, the double-Mach reflection problem, the forward facing step problem, and two shock wave and bubble interaction problems.     

Moving Mesh Discontinuous Galerkin Method for Hyperbolic Conservation Laws

In this paper, a moving mesh discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method is developed to solve the nonlinear conservation laws. In the mesh adaptation part, two issues have received much attention. One is about the construction of the monitor function which is used to guide the mesh redistribution. In this study, a heuristic posteriori error estimator is used in constructing the monitor function. The second issue is concerned with the solution interpolation which is used to interpolates the numerical solution from the old mesh to the updated mesh. This is done by using a scheme that mimics the DG method for linear conservation laws. Appropriate limiters are used on seriously distorted meshes generated by the moving mesh approach to suppress the numerical oscillations. Numerical results are provided to show the efficiency of the proposed moving mesh DG method.     

Locally Divergence-Free Discontinuous Galerkin Methods for MHD Equations

In this paper, we continue our investigation of the locally divergence-free discontinuous Galerkin method, originally developed for the linear Maxwell equations (J. Comput. Phys. 194 588–610 (2004)), to solve the nonlinear ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations. The distinctive feature of such method is the use of approximate solutions that are exactly divergence-free inside each element for the magnetic field. As a consequence, this method has a smaller computational cost than the traditional discontinuous Galerkin method with standard piecewise polynomial spaces. We formulate the locally divergence-free discontinuous Galerkin method for the MHD equations and perform extensive one and two-dimensional numerical experiments for both smooth solutions and solutions with discontinuities. Our computational results demonstrate that the locally divergence-free discontinuous Galerkin method, with a reduced cost comparing to the traditional discontinuous Galerkin method, can maintain the same accuracy for smooth solutions and can enhance the numerical stability of the scheme and reduce certain nonphysical features in some of the test cases.This revised version was published online in July 2005 with corrected volume and issue numbers.     

Constrained interpolation (remap) of divergence-free fields

A novel constrained interpolation algorithm for remapping of solenoidal face finite element vector fields is presented. The algorithm is based on explicit recovery, postprocessing and interpolation of a potential for the original vector field and a subsequent application of a curl operator to obtain the desired divergence-free finite element field on the new mesh.The use of interpolation instead of advection in the remap process offers valuable computational advantages. Old and new meshes are neither required to have the same connectivity, nor to be close to each other. Slope limiting and upwinding, which can be sensitive to grid structure, are avoided and replaced by local optimization to control energy of the remapped field.The new method is validated using a suite of cyclic remap problems on random and tensor product mesh sequences. A comparison with a local remapper based on a constrained transport advection algorithm is also included.     

DRM multidomain mass conservative interpolation approach for the BEM solution of the two-dimensional navier-stokes equations

The dual reciprocity method (DRM) is a technique to transform the domain integrals that appear in the boundary element method into equivalent boundary integrals. In this approach, the nonlinear terms are usually approximated by an interpolation applied to the convective terms of the Navier-Stokes equations. In this paper, we introduce a radial basis function interpolation scheme for the velocity field, that satisfies the continuity equation (mass conservative). The proposed method performs better than the classical interpolation used in the DRM approach to represent such a field. The new scheme together with a subdomain variation of the dual reciprocity method allows better approximation of the nonlinear terms in the Navier-Stokes equations.     

变形法移动网格求解双曲型守恒律方程研究

在现有格式的基础上要提高偏微分方程数值解的分辨率,自适应移动网格技术是一种有效而且可行的方法。文中将文献[1]提出的自适应移动网格技术推广到三角形网格,并将该方法用于求解双曲型守恒量方程。用网格自适应技术求解守恒律问题时,当生成新网格之后,需要将旧网格上的函数值更新到新的网格,并保持物理量的守恒性。针对这个问题,文中提出了函数值更新过程中守恒型插值公式的具体形式,并针对二维双曲型守恒律方程进行了仿真实验,取得了满意的结果。     

Adaptive WENO Methods Based on Radial Basis Function Reconstruction

We explore the use of radial basis functions (RBF) in the weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) reconstruction process used to solve hyperbolic conservation laws, resulting in a numerical method of arbitrarily high order to solve problems with discontinuous solutions. Thanks to the mesh-less property of the RBFs, the method is suitable for non-uniform grids and mesh adaptation. We focus on multiquadric radial basis functions and propose a simple strategy to choose the shape parameter to control the balance between achievable accuracy and the numerical stability. We also develop an original smoothness indicator which is independent of the RBF for the WENO reconstruction step. Moreover, we introduce type I and type II RBF-WENO methods by computing specific linear weights. The RBF-WENO method is used to solve linear and nonlinear problems for both scalar and systems of conservation laws, including Burgers equation, the Buckley–Leverett equation, and the Euler equations. Numerical results confirm the performance of the proposed method. We finally consider an effective conservative adaptive algorithm that captures moving shocks and rapidly varying solutions well. Numerical results on moving grids are presented for both Burgers equation and the more complex Euler equations.     

A mass conservative flow field visualization method

This paper introduces a new technique for computer visualization of three-dimensional flow fields. The most powerful feature of this technique is that the streamlines and stream surface are generated by mass conservative interpolation schemes. Interpolation is an important topic in flow visualization because CFD velocity fields are defined at a discrete location in space. Interpolation errors are more significant than those arising from numerical integration. The main draw-back of conventional trilinear interpolation of velocity is that it is not mass conservative. Failure to conserve mass can produce errors which can not be eliminated by reducing the integration step. A significant feature of the relationship between the velocity field and the stream functions is that it implies conservation of mass. So a mass conservative interpolation scheme is developed using a stream function, which is obtained by solving the partial differential equation in the local cell and approximated by a cluster of stream surfaces. Then the streamline can be traced using numerical techniques with mass conservative interpolation and the stream surface is directly calculated by slicing the stream function. The result is more accurate because we replace the polygoned tiling of streamlines by mass conservative stream surface generation. Results presented here compare the performance of the new method to the trilinear interpolation scheme and demonstrate its effectiveness.     

Level Set Calculations for Incompressible Two-Phase Flows on a Dynamically Adaptive Grid

We present a coupled moving mesh and level set method for computing incompressible two-phase flow with surface tension. This work extends a recent work of Di et al. [(2005). SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 26, 1036–1056] where a moving mesh strategy was proposed to solve the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. With the involvement of the level set function and the curvature of the interface, some subtle issues in the moving mesh scheme, in particular the solution interpolation from the old mesh to the new mesh and the choice of monitor functions, require careful considerations. In this work, a simple monitor function is proposed that involves both the level set function and its curvature. The purpose for designing the coupled moving mesh and level set method is to achieve higher resolution for the free surface by using a minimum amount of additional expense. Numerical experiments for air bubbles and water drops are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

Numerical solution of a phase field model for incompressible two-phase flows based on artificial compressibility

We present an artificial compressibility based numerical method for a phase field model for simulating two-phase incompressible viscous flows. The phase model was proposed by Liu and Shen [Physica D. 179 (2003) 211–228], in which the interface between two fluids is represented by a thin transition region of fluid mixture that stores certain amount of mixing energy. The model consists of the Navier–Stokes equations coupled with the Allen–Cahn equation (phase field equation) through an extra stress term and a transport term. The extra stress in the momentum equations represents the phase-induced capillary effect for the mixture due to the surface tension. The coupled equations are cast into a conservative form suitable for implementation with the artificial compressibility method. The resulting hyperbolic system of equations are then discretized with weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) finite difference scheme. The dual-time stepping technique is applied for obtaining time accuracy at each physical time step, and the approximate factorization algorithm is used to solve the discretized equations. The effectiveness of the numerical method is demonstrated in several two-phase flow problems with topological changes. Numerical results show the present method can be used to simulate incompressible two-phase flows with small interfacial width parameters and topological changes.     

A projection operator for the restoration of divergence-free vectorfields

The theory of image restoration by projection onto convex sets can also be applied to the restoration of vector fields. These can have properties that restrict them to lie in well-defined closed convex sets. One of the properties, divergence freedom, is considered, and the theory and numerical implementation of its projection operator are presented. The performance of the operator is illustrated by restoring, from partial information, two simulated divergence-free vector fields. This projection operator finds an important application in the restoration of velocity fields or optical flows computed from an image sequence when the real velocity field is known, a priori to be divergence-free     

A spurious evolution of turbulence originated from round-off error in pseudo-spectral simulation

We report a slowly-developing, spurious numerical solution in pseudo-spectral direct numerical simulation (DNS) of incompressible fluid turbulence. When the effect of machine round-off on the divergence-free condition is not carefully controlled, a problem can develop slowly (over about 50 large-eddy turnover times) and eventually leads to an unphysical flow field. The problem was found with a previously published, highly-compact algorithm for pseudo-spectral DNS and therefore it is important to document the contamination of this numerical artifact on simulated turbulence structure and statistics. This is a striking example since the problem is not easily noticeable due to its very long development time, and it does not lead to numerical instability but rather a different flow state. A theory is developed to explain the unphysical evolution and predicts the exponential growth of round-off error induced velocity divergence. The theory shows that any correlation of the large-scale forcing with the velocity field at the beginning of the time step could lead to amplification of the velocity divergence. For this reason, the problem is quite reproducible. Several simple remedies are tested and shown to correct the problem. It is shown that all revised algorithms are identical theoretically to the original algorithm, with the only difference in the level of control for the divergence-free condition of the simulated flow field. A general recommendation is that the pressure projection operation should be performed at the end of each time step to ensure that the divergence-free condition is not contaminated by machine round-off.     

Free-surface flow simulations in the presence of inclined walls

Difficulties associated with free-surface finite element flow simulations are related to (a) nonlinear and advective nature of most hydrodynamic flows, (b) requirements for compatibility between velocity and pressure interpolation, (c) maintaining a valid computational mesh in the presence of moving boundaries, and (d) enforcement of the kinematic conditions at the free surface. Focusing on the last issue, we present an extension of the free-surface elevation equation to cases where the prescribed direction of the surface node motion is not uniformly vertical. The resulting hyperbolic generalized elevation equation is discretized using a Galerkin/least-squares formulation applied on the surface mesh. The elevation field so obtained is then used to impose displacement boundary conditions on the elastic mesh update scheme that governs the movement of interior mesh nodes. The proposed method is used to solve a two-dimensional problem of sloshing in a trapezoidal tank, and a three-dimensional application involving flow in a trapezoidal channel with bridge supports.     

结构变形对整流罩分离轨迹的影响

为研究弹性体在稠密大气中的分离问题,基于非结构网格,采用运动网格与局部网格重构相结合的方法求解大位移相对运动的流场,并耦合6自由度刚体运动方程得到整流罩的运动.非定常流动方程使用格心有限体积法进行空间离散,并运用LU-SGS进行求解.应用标准算例验证该方法的准确性,并用于某整流罩飞行轨迹的计算.结果表明结构变形可能会使...     

A collocated finite volume embedding method for simulation of flow past stationary and moving body

A simple and conservative numerical scheme is introduced in this paper to simulate unsteady flow around stationary and moving body. Based on the embedding method (immersed boundary (IB) + volume of fluid (VOF)) implemented in the finite-volume framework, flow past the arbitrarily complex geometry can be readily computed on any existing mesh system. Flow variables stored at cell centers, including those residing within the immersed body, are computed where the induced effect on the flow due to the immersed body is realised via a simple acceleration term (forcing function) derived based on the VOF value. In the current work, an identical VOF value is used for all momentum equations, in contrast to that of the pre-existing method, whereby numerical interpolation is required. The method is verified with a number of flow cases, including flow in a 2D square cavity, flow past a stationary and oscillating cylinder and flow induced by a flapping ellipse in an enclosure.     

Numerical modeling of two-phase transonic flow

Our work is aimed at the development of numerical method for the modeling of transonic flow of wet steam including condensation/evaporation phase change. We solve a system of PDE’s consisting of Euler or Navier-Stokes equations for the mixture of vapor and liquid droplets and transport equations for the integral parameters describing the droplet size spectra. Numerical method is based on a fractional step technique due to the stiff character of source terms, i.e. we solve separately the set of homogenous PDE’s by the finite volume method and the remaining set of ODE’s either by explicit Runge-Kutta or implicit Euler method. The finite volume method is based on the Lax-Wendroff scheme with conservative artificial dissipation terms for structured grid. We also note result achieved by recently developed finite volume method with VFFC scheme. We discuss numerical results of steady and unsteady two-phase transonic flow in 2D nozzle, 2D and 3D turbine cascade and 2D turbine stage with moving rotor cascade.