A block LU-SGS implicit dual time-stepping algorithm for hybrid dynamic meshes

A block lower-upper symmetric Gauss-Seidel (BLU-SGS) implicit dual time-stepping method is developed for moving body problems with hybrid dynamic grids. To simulate flows over complex configurations, a hybrid grid method is adopted in this paper. Body-fitted quadrilateral (quad) grids are generated first near solid bodies. An adaptive Cartesian mesh is then generated to cover the entire computational domain. Cartesian cells which overlap the quad grids are removed from the computational domain, and a gap is produced between the quad grids and the adaptive Cartesian grid. Finally triangular grids are used to fill this gap. With the motion of moving bodies, the quad grids move with the bodies, while the adaptive Cartesian grid remains stationary. Meanwhile, the triangular grids are deformed according to the motion of solid bodies with a ‘spring’ analogy approach. If the triangular grids become too skewed, or the adaptive Cartesian grid crosses into the quad grids, the triangular grids are regenerated. Then the flow solution is interpolated from the old to the new grid. The fully implicit equation is solved using a dual time-stepping solver. A Godunov-type scheme with Roe’s flux splitting is used to compute the inviscid flux. Several sub-iteration schemes are investigated in this study. Both supersonic and transonic unsteady cases are tested to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the method.     

Numerical simulation of 3D fluid–structure interaction flow using an immersed object method with overlapping grids

The newly developed immersed object method (IOM) [Tai CH, Zhao Y, Liew KM. Parallel computation of unsteady incompressible viscous flows around moving rigid bodies using an immersed object method with overlapping grids. J Comput Phys 2005; 207(1): 151–72] is extended for 3D unsteady flow simulation with fluid–structure interaction (FSI), which is made possible by combining it with a parallel unstructured multigrid Navier–Stokes solver using a matrix-free implicit dual time stepping and finite volume method [Tai CH, Zhao Y, Liew KM. Parallel computation of unsteady three-dimensional incompressible viscous flow using an unstructured multigrid method. In: The second M.I.T. conference on computational fluid and solid mechanics, June 17–20, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA, 2003; Tai CH, Zhao Y, Liew KM. Parallel computation of unsteady three-dimensional incompressible viscous flow using an unstructured multigrid method, Special issue on “Preconditioning methods: algorithms, applications and software environments. Comput Struct 2004; 82(28): 2425–36]. This uniquely combined method is then employed to perform detailed study of 3D unsteady flows with complex FSI. In the IOM, a body force term F is introduced into the momentum equations during the artificial compressibility (AC) sub-iterations so that a desired velocity distribution V₀ can be obtained on and within the object boundary, which needs not coincide with the grid, by adopting the direct forcing method. An object mesh is immersed into the flow domain to define the boundary of the object. The advantage of this is that bodies of almost arbitrary shapes can be added without grid restructuring, a procedure which is often time-consuming and computationally expensive. It has enabled us to perform complex and detailed 3D unsteady blood flow and blood–leaflets interaction in a mechanical heart valve (MHV) under physiological conditions.     

Time-accurate Navier-Stokes simulation of vortex convection using an unstructured dynamic mesh procedure

A two-dimensional Navier-Stokes flow solver is developed for the simulation of unsteady flows on unstructured adaptive meshes. The solver is based on a second-order accurate implicit time integration using a point Gauss-Seidel relaxation scheme and a dual time-step subiteration. A vertex-centered, finite-volume discretization is used in conjunction with Roe’s flux-difference splitting. The Spalart-Allmaras one equation model is employed for the simulation of turbulence. An unsteady solution-adaptive dynamic mesh scheme is used by adding and deleting mesh points to take account of spatial and temporal variations of the flowfield. Unsteady viscous flow for a traveling vortex in a free stream is simulated to validate the accuracy of the dynamic mesh adaptation procedure. Flow around a circular cylinder and two blade-vortex interaction problems are investigated for demonstration of the present method. Computed results show good agreement with existing experimental and computational results. It was found that unsteady time-accurate viscous flows can be accurately simulated using the present unstructured dynamic mesh adaptation procedure.     

Computational simulation of model and full scale Class 8 trucks with drag reduction devices

Numerical solutions of the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations using a parallel implicit flow solver are given to investigate unsteady aerodynamic flows affecting the fuel economy of Class 8 trucks. Both compressible and incompressible forms of the equations are solved using a finite-volume discretization for unstructured grids and using Riemann-based interfacial fluxes and characteristic-variable numerical boundary conditions. A preconditioned primitive-variable formulation is used for compressible solutions, and the incompressible solutions employ artificial compressibility. Detached eddy simulation (DES) versions of the one-equation Menter SAS and the two-equation k − ?/k − ω hybrid turbulence models are used. A fully nonlinear implicit backward-time approximation is solved using a parallel Newton-iterative algorithm with numerically computed flux Jacobians. Unsteady three-dimensional aerodynamic simulations with grids of 18–20 million points and 50,000 time steps are given for the Generic Conventional Model (GCM), a 1:8 scale tractor–trailer model that was tested in the NASA Ames 7 × 10 tunnel. Computed pressure coefficients and drag force are in good agreement with measurements for a zero-incidence case. Similar computations for a case with 10° yaw gave reasonable agreement for drag force, while the pressure distributions suggested the need for tighter grid resolution or possibly improved turbulence models. Unsteady incompressible flow simulations were performed for a modified full scale version of the GCM geometry to evaluate drag reduction devices. All of these simulations were performed with a moving ground plane and rotating rear wheels. A simulation with trailer base flaps is compared with drag reduction data from wind tunnels and track and road tests. A front spoiler and three mud-flap designs with modest drag reduction potential are also evaluated.     

Applications of stencil-adaptive finite difference method to incompressible viscous flows with curved boundary

This paper investigates the applicability of the stencil-adaptive finite difference method for the simulation of two-dimensional unsteady incompressible viscous flows with curved boundary. The adaptive stencil refinement algorithm has been proven to be able to continuously adapt the stencil resolution according to the gradient of flow parameter of interest [Ding H, Shu C. A stencil adaptive algorithm for finite difference solution of incompressible viscous flows. J Comput Phys 2006;214:397-420], which facilitates the saving of the computational efforts. On the other hand, the capability of the domain-free discretization technique in dealing with the curved boundary provides a great flexibility for the finite difference scheme on the Cartesian grid. Here, we show that their combination makes it possible to simulate the unsteady incompressible flow with curved boundary on a dynamically changed grid. The methods are validated by simulating steady and unsteady incompressible viscous flows over a stationary circular cylinder.     

Numerical simulation of the unsteady three-dimensional flow in confined domains crossed by moving bodies

A numerical method devoted to the prediction of unsteady flows in complex domains with moving boundaries is presented. Based on the unsteady Euler equations with source terms to take diffusive effects into account as well as additional mass, momentum or enthalpy sources, it has been specially developed to model the thermal and dynamic behavior of the ambient air inside underground stations in the presence of moving trains. The numerical solution method is a unstructured finite-volume cell-centered scheme using the SIMPLE algorithm coupled with a second-order intermediate time stepping scheme. The spatial discretization is realized with an automatic Cartesian grid generator, complemented by a technique of sliding grids to handle straight moving bodies inside the domain.     

Parallel computation of unsteady three-dimensional incompressible viscous flow using an unstructured multigrid method

The development and validation of a parallel unstructured tetrahedral non-nested multigrid (MG) method for simulation of unsteady 3D incompressible viscous flow is presented. The Navier-Stokes solver is based on the artificial compressibility method (ACM) and a higher-order characteristics-based finite-volume scheme on unstructured MG. Unsteady flow is calculated with an implicit dual time stepping scheme. The parallelization of the solver is achieved by a MG domain decomposition approach (MG-DD), using the Single Program Multiple Data (SPMD) programming paradigm. The Message-Passing Interface (MPI) Library is used for communication of data and loop arrays are decomposed using the OpenMP standard. The parallel codes using single grid and MG are used to simulate steady and unsteady incompressible viscous flows for a 3D lid-driven cavity flow for validation and performance evaluation purposes. The speedups and efficiencies obtained by both the parallel single grid and MG solvers are reasonably good for all test cases, using up to 32 processors on the SGI Origin 3400. The parallel results obtained agree well with those of serial solvers and with numerical solutions obtained by other researchers, as well as experimental measurements.     

A parallel boundary fitted dynamic mesh solver for applications to flapping flight

A parallel numerical solution procedure for unsteady incompressible flow is developed for simulating the dynamics of flapping flight. A collocated finite volume multiblock approach in a general curvilinear coordinate is used with Cartesian velocities and pressure as dependent variables. The Navier-Stokes equations are solved using a fractional-step algorithm. The dynamic grid algorithm is implemented by satisfying the space conservation law by computing the grid velocities in terms of the volume swept by the faces. The dynamic movement of grid in a multiblock approach is achieved by using a combination of spring analogy and Trans-Finite Interpolation. The spring analogy is used to compute the displacement of block corners, after which Trans-Finite Interpolation is applied independently on each computational block. The performance of the code is validated in forced transverse oscillations of a cylinder in cross-flow, a heaving airfoil, and hovering of a fruitfly. Finally, the unsteady aerodynamics of flapping flight at Re = 10,000 relevant to the development of Micro Air Vehicles is analyzed for forward flight. The results show the capability of the solver in predicting unsteady aerodynamics characterized by complex boundary movements.     

Parallel-multigrid computation of unsteady incompressible viscous flows using a matrix-free implicit method and high-resolution characteristics-based scheme

A three-dimensional parallel unstructured non-nested multigrid solver for solutions of unsteady incompressible viscous flow is developed and validated. The finite-volume Navier–Stokes solver is based on the artificial compressibility approach with a high-resolution method of characteristics-based scheme for handling convection terms. The unsteady flow is calculated with a matrix-free implicit dual time stepping scheme. The parallelization of the multigrid solver is achieved by multigrid domain decomposition approach (MG-DD), using single program multiple data (SPMD) and multiple instruction multiple data (MIMD) programming paradigm. There are two parallelization strategies proposed in this work, first strategy is a one-level parallelization strategy using geometric domain decomposition technique alone, second strategy is a two-level parallelization strategy that consists of a hybrid of both geometric domain decomposition and data decomposition techniques. Message-passing interface (MPI) and OpenMP standard are used to communicate data between processors and decompose loop iterations arrays, respectively. The parallel-multigrid code is used to simulate both steady and unsteady incompressible viscous flows over a circular cylinder and a lid-driven cavity flow. A maximum speedup of 22.5 could be achieved on 32 processors, for instance, the lid-driven cavity flow of Re = 1000. The results obtained agree well with numerical solutions obtained by other researchers as well as experimental measurements. A detailed study of the time step size and number of pseudo-sub-iterations per time step required for simulating unsteady flow are presented in this paper.     

A SVD-GFD scheme for computing 3D incompressible viscous fluid flows

A generalized finite difference (GFD) scheme for the simulation of three-dimensional (3D) incompressible viscous fluid flows in primitive variables is described in this paper. Numerical discretization is carried out on a hybrid Cartesian cum meshfree grid, with derivative approximation on non-Cartesian grids being carried out by a singular value decomposition (SVD) based GFD procedure. The Navier-Stokes equations are integrated by a time-splitting pressure correction scheme with second-order Crank-Nicolson and second-order discretization of time and spatial derivatives respectively. Axisymmetric and asymmetric 3D flows past a sphere with Reynolds numbers of up to 300 are simulated and compared with the results of Johnson and Patel [Johnson TA, Patel VC. Flow past a sphere up to a Reynolds number of 300. J Fluid Mech 1999;378:19-70] and others. Flows past toroidal rings are also simulated to illustrate the ability of the scheme to deal with more complex body geometry. The current method can also deal with flow past 3D bodies with sharp edges and corners, which is shown by a simple 3D case.     

Incompressible flow computations over moving boundary using a novel upwind method

In this paper a novel method for simulating unsteady incompressible viscous flow over a moving boundary is described. The numerical model is based on a 2D Navier–Stokes incompressible flow in artificial compressibility formulation with Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian approach for moving grid and dual time stepping approach for time accurate discretization. A higher order unstructured finite volume scheme, based on a Harten Lax and van Leer with Contact (HLLC) type Riemann solver for convective fluxes, developed for steady incompressible flow in artificial compressibility formulation by Mandal and Iyer (AIAA paper 2009-3541), is extended to solve unsteady flows over moving boundary. Viscous fluxes are discretized in a central differencing manner based on Coirier’s diamond path. An algorithm based on interpolation with radial basis functions is used for grid movements. The present numerical scheme is validated for an unsteady channel flow with a moving indentation. The present numerical results are found to agree well with experimental results reported in literature.     

混合重叠网格通信优化算法

重叠网格技术广泛应用在复杂外型和运动边界问题的流场数值模拟中.本文在并行重叠网格隐式挖洞算法实现的基础上,提出了笛卡尔辅助网格和多块结构网格的混合重叠网格方法.通过笛卡尔辅助网格实现重叠网格洞边界和网格插值关系的快速建立.通过定义重叠区域网格权重、部件网格与背景网格绑定的方法,建立了混合网格的并行分配模式,有效减少重叠插值信息在各进程间的通信,实现计算负载和通信负载在各个进程的均匀分配.测试表明该方法可应用于数千万量级的重叠网格系统,可扩展至千核规模,高效的实现多个物体构成的复杂网格系统的重叠关系建立.     

Cartesian cut cell approach for simulating incompressible flows with rigid bodies of arbitrary shape

In this paper, a Cartesian grid method with cut cell approach has been developed to simulate two dimensional unsteady viscous incompressible flows with rigid bodies of arbitrary shape. A collocated finite volume method with nominally second-order accurate schemes in space is used for discretization. A pressure-free projection method is used to solve the equations governing incompressible flows. For fixed-body problems, the Adams-Bashforth scheme is employed for the advection terms and the Crank-Nicholson scheme for the diffusion terms. For moving-body problems, the fully implicit scheme is employed for both terms. The present cut cell approach with cell merging process ensures global mass/momentum conservation and avoid exceptionally small size of control volume which causes impractical time step size. The cell merging process not only keeps the shape resolution as good as before merging, but also makes both the location of cut face center and the construction of interpolation stencil easy and systematic, hence enables the straightforward extension to three dimensional space in the future. Various test examples, including a moving-body problem, were computed and validated against previous simulations or experiments to prove the accuracy and effectiveness of the present method. The observed order of accuracy in the spatial discretization is superlinear.     

An efficient solver for the RANS equations and a one-equation turbulence model

A three-stage Runge-Kutta (RK) scheme with multigrid and an implicit preconditioner has been shown to be an effective solver for the fluid dynamic equations. Using the algebraic turbulence model of Baldwin and Lomax, this scheme has been used to solve the compressible Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations for transonic and low-speed flows. In this paper we focus on the convergence of the RK/Implicit scheme when the effects of turbulence are represented by the one-equation model of Spalart and Allmaras. With the present scheme the RANS equations and the partial differential equation of the turbulence model are solved in a loosely coupled manner. This approach allows the convergence behavior of each system to be examined. Point symmetric Gauss-Seidel supplemented with local line relaxation is used to approximate the inverse of the implicit operator of the RANS solver. To solve the turbulence equation we consider three alternative methods: diagonally dominant alternating direction implicit (DDADI), symmetric line Gauss-Seidel (SLGS), and a two-stage RK scheme with implicit preconditioning. Computational results are presented for airfoil flows, and comparisons are made with experimental data. We demonstrate that the two-dimensional RANS equations and a transport-type equation for turbulence modeling can be efficiently solved with an indirectly coupled algorithm that uses RK/Implicit schemes.     

A FV-TD electromagnetic solver using adaptive Cartesian grids

A second-order finite-volume (FV) method has been developed to solve the time-domain (TD) Maxwell equations, which govern the dynamics of electromagnetic waves. The computational electromagnetic (CEM) solver is capable of handling arbitrary grids, including structured, unstructured, and adaptive Cartesian grids, which are topologically arbitrary. It is argued in this paper that the adaptive Cartesian grid is better than a tetrahedral grid for complex geometries considering both efficiency and accuracy. A cell-wise linear reconstruction scheme is employed to achieve second-order spatial accuracy. Second-order time accuracy is obtained through a two-step Runge-Kutta scheme. Issues on automatic adaptive Cartesian grid generation such as cell-cutting and cell-merging are discussed. A multi-dimensional characteristic absorbing boundary condition (MDC-ABC) is developed at the truncated far-field boundary to reduce reflected waves from this artificial boundary. The CEM solver is demonstrated with several test cases with analytical solutions.     

An integrated media, integrated processes watershed model

The motivation of this work is to carry out parallel simulations of incompressible flows on block-structured meshes. A new partitioning method is proposed. The quality of rectangular partitions is checked and compared with other methods, as regards load balance, edge-cut and block numbers. The partitioner is coupled with the massively parallel Hypre solver library and efficiency of the coupling is measured. Finally, the code is applied to study laminar flows (steady and unsteady) on three non-rectangular geometries. Very fine grids are used to compute reference solutions of a Z-shaped channel flow and the L-shaped and double lid driven cavities.     

A unifying grid approach for solving potential flows applicable to structured and unstructured grid configurations

In this study, an efficient numerical method is proposed for unifying the structured and unstructured grid approaches for solving the potential flows. The new method, named as the “alternating cell directions implicit - ACDI”, solves for the structured and unstructured grid configurations equally well. The new method in effect applies a line implicit method similar to the Line Gauss Seidel scheme for complex unstructured grids including mixed type quadrilateral and triangle cells. To this end, designated alternating directions are taken along chains of contiguous cells, i.e. ‘cell directions’, and an ADI-like sweeping is made to update these cells using a Line Gauss Seidel like scheme. The algorithm makes sure that the entire flow field is updated by traversing each cell twice at each time step for unstructured quadrilateral grids that may contain triangular cells. In this study, a cell-centered finite volume formulation of the ACDI method is demonstrated. The solutions are obtained for incompressible potential flows around a circular cylinder and a forward step. The results are compared with the analytical solutions and numerical solutions using the implicit ADI and the explicit Runge-Kutta methods on single-and multi-block structured and unstructured grids. The results demonstrate that the present ACDI method is unconditionally stable, easy to use and has the same computational performance in terms of convergence, accuracy and run times for both the structured and unstructured grids.     

An implicit gas-kinetic scheme for turbulent flow on unstructured hybrid mesh

In this study, an implicit scheme for the gas-kinetic scheme (GKS) on the unstructured hybrid mesh is proposed. The Spalart–Allmaras (SA) one equation turbulence model is incorporated into the implicit gas-kinetic scheme (IGKS) to predict the effects of turbulence. The implicit macroscopic governing equations are constructed and solved by the matrix-free lower-upper symmetric-Gauss–Seidel (LU-SGS) method. To reduce the number of cells and computational cost, the hybrid mesh is applied. A modified non-manifold hybrid mesh data(NHMD) is used for both unstructured hybrid mesh and uniform grid. Numerical investigations are performed on different 2D laminar and turbulent flows. The convergence property and the computational efficiency of the present IGKS method are investigated. Much better performance is obtained compared with the standard explicit gas-kinetic scheme. Also, our numerical results are found to be in good agreement with experiment data and other numerical solutions, demonstrating the good applicability and high efficiency of the present IGKS for the simulations of laminar and turbulent flows.     

Study on a grid interface algorithm for solutions of incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

Grid interface treatment is a crucial issue in solving unsteady, three-dimensional, incompressible Navier–Stokes equations by domain decomposition methods. Recently, a mass flux based interpolation (MFBI) interface algorithm was proposed for Chimera grids [Tang HS, Jones SC, Sotiropoulos F. An overset grid method for 3D unsteady incompressible flows. J Comput Phys, 2003;191:567–600] and it has been successfully applied to a variety of flows. MFBI determines velocity and pressure at grid interfaces by mass conservation and interpolation, and it is easy to implement. Compared with the commonly used standard interpolation, which directly interpolates velocity as well as pressure, the proposed interface algorithm gives fewer solution oscillations and faster convergence rates. This paper makes a study on MFBI. Starting with discussions about grid connectivity, it is shown that MFBI is second-order accurate for mass flux across grid interface. It is also derived that the scheme provides second-order accuracy for momentum flux. In addition, another version of MFBI is presented. At last, numerical examples are presented to demonstrate that MFBI honors mass flux balance at grid interfaces and it leads to second-order accurate solutions.