Pseudospectral simulation of turbulent viscoelastic channel flow

The methodology and validation of direct numerical simulations of viscoelastic turbulent channel flow are presented here. Using differential constitutive models derived from kinetic and network theories, numerical simulations have demonstrated drag reduction for various values of the parameters, under conditions where there is a substantial increase in the extensional viscosity compared to the shear viscosity (Sureshkumar, Beris, Handler, Direct numerical simulation of turbulent channel flow of a polymer solution, Phys. Fluids 9 (1997) 743–755 and Dimitropoulos, Sureshkumar, Beris, Direct numerical simulation of viscoelastic turbulent channel flow exhibiting drag reduction: effect of the variation of rheological parameters, J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mech. 79 (1998) 433–468). In this work, new results pertaining to the Reynolds stress and the pressure are presented, and the convergence of the pseudospectral algorithm utilized in the simulations, as well as its parallel implementation, are discussed in detail. It is shown that the lack of mesh refinement, or the use of a larger value for the artificial stress diffusivity used to stabilize the conformation tensor evolution equations, introduce small quantitative errors which qualitatively have the effect of lowering the drag reduction capability of the simulated fluid. However, an insufficient size of the periodic computational domain can also introduce errors in certain cases, which albeit usually small, can qualitatively alter various features of the solution.     

Flow over periodic hills - Numerical and experimental study in a wide range of Reynolds numbers

The paper presents a detailed analysis of the flow over smoothly contoured constrictions in a plane channel. This configuration represents a generic case of a flow separating from a curved surface with well-defined flow conditions which makes it especially suited as benchmark case for computing separated flows. The hills constrict the channel by about one third of its height and are spaced at a distance of 9 hill heights. This setup follows the investigation of Fröhlich et al. [Fröhlich J, Mellen CP, Rodi W, Temmerman L, Leschziner MA. Highly resolved large-eddy simulation of separated flow in a channel with streamwise periodic constrictions. J Fluid Mech 2005;526:19-66] and complements it by numerical and experimental data over a wide range of Reynolds numbers. We present results predicted by direct numerical simulations (DNS) and highly resolved large-eddy simulations (LES) achieved by two completely independent codes. Furthermore, these numerical results are supported by new experimental data from PIV measurements. The configuration in the numerical study uses periodic boundary conditions in streamwise and spanwise direction. In the experimental setup periodicity is achieved by an array of 10 hills in streamwise direction and a large spanwise extent of the channel. The assumption of periodicity in the experiment is checked by the pressure drop between consecutive hill tops and PIV measurements. The focus of this study is twofold: (i) Numerical and experimental data are presented which can be referred to as reference data for this widely used standard test case. Physical peculiarities and new findings of the case under consideration are described and confirmed independently by different codes and experimental data. Mean velocity and pressure distributions, Reynolds stresses, anisotropy-invariant maps, and instantaneous quantities are shown. (ii) Extending previous studies the flow over periodic hills is investigated in the wide range of Reynolds numbers covering 100?Re?10,595. Starting at very low Re the evolution and existence of physical phenomena such as a tiny recirculation region at the hill crest are documented. The limit to steady laminar flow as well as the transition to a fully turbulent flow stage are presented. For 700?Re?10,595 turbulent statistics are analyzed in detail. Carefully, undertaken DNS and LES predictions as well as cross-checking between different numerical and experimental results build the framework for physical investigations on the flow behavior. New interesting features of the flow were found.     

Direct numerical simulation of rarefied turbulent microchannel flow

Direct numerical simulation (DNS) has been carried out to investigate the effect of weak rarefaction on turbulent gas flow and heat transfer characteristics in microchannel. The Reynolds number based on the friction velocity and the channel half width is 150. Grid number is 64 × 128 × 64. Fractional time-step method is employed for the unsteady Navier–Stokes equations, and the governing equations are discretized with finite difference method. Statistical quantities such as turbulent intensity, Reynolds shear stress, turbulent heat flux and temperature variance are obtained under various Knudsen number from 0 to 0.05. The results show that rarefaction can influence the turbulent flow and heat transfer statistics. The streamwise mean velocity and temperature increase with increase of Kn number. In the near-wall-region rarefaction can increase the turbulent intensities and temperature variance. The effects of rarefaction on Reynolds shear stress and wall-normal heat flux are presented. The instantaneous velocity fluctuations in the vicinity of the wall are visualized and the influence of Kn number on the flow structure is discussed.     

Spectral element-Fourier methods for incompressible turbulent flows

A mixed spectral element-(Fourier) spectral method is proposed for solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in general, curvilinear domains. The formulation is appropriate for simulations of turbulent flows in complex geometries with only one homogeneous flow direction. The governing equations are written in a form suitable for both direct (DNS) and large-eddy (LES) simulations allowing a unified implementation. The method is based on skew-symmetric convective operators that induce minimal aliasing errors and fast Helmholtz solvers that employ efficient iterative algorithms (e.g. multigrid). Direct numerical simulations of channel flow verified that the proposed method can sustain turbulent fluctuations even at ‘marginal’ Reynolds numbers. The flexibility of the method to efficiently simulate complex-geometry flows is demonstrated through an example of transitional flow in a grooved channel and an example of transitional-turbulent flow over rough wall surfaces.     

Lift and multiple equilibrium positions of a single particle in Newtonian and Oldroyd-B fluids

A heavy particle is lifted from the bottom of a channel in a plane Poiseuille flow when the Reynolds number is larger than a critical value. In this paper we obtain correlations for lift-off of particles in Oldroyd-B fluids. The fluid elasticity reduces the critical shear Reynolds number for lift-off. The effect of the gap size between the particle and the wall, on the lift force, is also studied. A particle lifted from the channel wall attains an equilibrium height at which its buoyant weight is balanced by the hydrodynamic lift force. Choi and Joseph [Choi HG, Joseph DD. Fluidization by lift of 300 circular particles in plane Poiseuille flow by direct numerical simulation. J Fluid Mech 2001;438:101-128] first observed multiple equilibrium positions for a particle in Newtonian fluids. We report several new results for the Newtonian fluid case based on a detailed study of the multiple equilibrium solutions, e.g. we find that at a given Reynolds number there are regions inside the channel where no particle, irrespective of its weight, can attain a stable equilibrium position. This would result in particle-depleted zones in channels with Poiseuille flows of a dilute suspension of particles of varying densities. Multiple equilibrium positions of particles are also found in Oldroyd-B fluids. All the results in this paper are based on 2D direct numerical simulations.     

Application of single-level,pointwise algebraic,and smoothed aggregation multigrid methods to direct numerical simulations of incompressible turbulent flows

Single- and multi-level iterative methods for sparse linear systems are applied to unsteady flow simulations via implementation into a direct numerical simulation solver for incompressible turbulent flows on unstructured meshes. The performance of these solution methods, implemented in the well-established SAMG and ML packages, are quantified in terms of computational speed and memory consumption, with a direct sparse LU solver (SuperLU) used as a reference. The classical test case of unsteady flow over a circular cylinder at low Reynolds numbers is considered, employing a series of increasingly fine anisotropic meshes. As expected, the memory consumption increases dramatically with the considered problem size for the direct solver. Surprisingly, however, the computation times remain reasonable. The speed and memory usage of pointwise algebraic and smoothed aggregation multigrid solvers are found to exhibit near-linear scaling. As an alternative to multi-level solvers, a single-level ILUT-preconditioned GMRES solver with low drop tolerance is also considered. This solver is found to perform sufficiently well only on small meshes. Even then, it is outperformed by pointwise algebraic multigrid on all counts. Finally, the effectiveness of pointwise algebraic multigrid is illustrated by considering a large three-dimensional direct numerical simulation case using a novel parallelization approach on a large distributed memory computing cluster.     

A parallel, finite-volume algorithm for large-eddy simulation of turbulent flows

A parallel, finite-volume algorithm has been developed for large-eddy simulation (LES) of compressible turbulent flows. This algorithm includes piecewise linear least-square reconstruction, trilinear finite-element interpolation, Roe flux-difference splitting (FDS), and second-order MacCormack time marching. A systematic and consistent means of evaluating the surface and volume integrals of the control volume is described. Parallel implementation is done using the message-passing programming model. To validate the numerical method for turbulence simulation, LES of fully developed turbulent flow in a square duct is performed for a Reynolds number of 320 based on the average friction velocity and the hydraulic diameter of the duct. Direct numerical simulation (DNS) results are available for this test case, and the accuracy of this algorithm for turbulence simulations can be ascertained by comparing the LES solutions with the DNS results. For the first time, a finite volume method with Roe FDS was used for LES of turbulent flow in a square duct, and the effects of grid resolution, upwind numerical dissipation, and subgrid-scale dissipation on the accuracy of the LES are examined. Comparison with DNS results shows that the standard Roe FDS adversely affects the accuracy of the turbulence simulation. For accurate turbulence simulations, only 3–5% of the standard Roe FDS dissipation is needed.     

Time-scale joint representation of DNS and LES numerical data

A spectral analysis and a multiscale study are performed on the numerical data obtained from direct numerical simulation and large-eddy simulation of the turbulent flow in a cubical lid-driven cavity. The analyzed data or signals are picked at three specific points inside the cavity allowing to investigate three drastically different flow regimes over time: laminar, transitional and turbulent. In comparison with direct numerical simulation, large-eddy simulation not only have a reduced resolution in space but also in time. In this context a wavelet analysis is chosen to study signals from large-eddy simulation, to provide a ‘local’ analysis of transient turbulent events. A time-scale joint representation is generated by continuous wavelet transform and compared with the time-scale joint representation of the direct numerical simulation. In this framework, the main objective of this study is to confirm the correlation between the computed physical quantities and those expected theoretically.     

Direct numerical simulation of turbulent channel flows using a stabilized finite element method

Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of incompressible turbulent channel flows at Re_τ = 180 and 395 (i.e., Reynolds number, based on the friction velocity and channel half-width) were performed using a stabilized finite element method (FEM). These simulations have been motivated by the fact that the use of stabilized finite element methods for DNS and LES is fairly recent and thus the question of how accurately these methods capture the wide range of scales in a turbulent flow remains open. To help address this question, we present converged results of turbulent channel flows under statistical equilibrium in terms of mean velocity, mean shear stresses, root mean square velocity fluctuations, autocorrelation coefficients, one-dimensional energy spectra and balances of the transport equation for turbulent kinetic energy. These results are consistent with previously published DNS results based on a pseudo-spectral method, thereby demonstrating the accuracy of the stabilized FEM for turbulence simulations.     

Numerical solution of incompressible flow through branched channels

The work deals with numerical solution of 3D turbulent flow in straight channel and branched channels with two outlets. The mathematical model of the flow is based on Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations for incompressible flow in 3D with explicit algebraic Reynolds stress turbulence model (EARSM). The mathematical model is solved by artificial compressibility method with implicit finite volume discretization. The channels have constant square or circular cross-section, where the hydraulic diameter is same in order to enable comparison between these numerical simulations. First, developed flow in a straight channel of square cross-section is presented in order to show the ability of the used EARSM turbulence model to capture secondary corner vortices, which are not predicted by eddy viscosity models. Next the flow through channels with perpendicular branch is simulated. Methods of setting the flow rate are discussed. The numerical results are presented for two flow rates in the branch.     

Parallelization and scalability of a spectral element channel flow solver for incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

Direct numerical simulation (DNS) of turbulent flows is widely recognized to demand fine spatial meshes, small timesteps, and very long runtimes to properly resolve the flow field. To overcome these limitations, most DNS is performed on supercomputing machines. With the rapid development of terascale (and, eventually, petascale) computing on thousands of processors, it has become imperative to consider the development of DNS algorithms and parallelization methods that are capable of fully exploiting these massively parallel machines. A highly parallelizable algorithm for the simulation of turbulent channel flow that allows for efficient scaling on several thousand processors is presented. A model that accurately predicts the performance of the algorithm is developed and compared with experimental data. The results demonstrate that the proposed numerical algorithm is capable of scaling well on petascale computing machines and thus will allow for the development and analysis of high Reynolds number channel flows. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Physiological analysis of streamline topologies and their bifurcations for a peristaltic flow of nano fluid

In the present article, the techniques of dynamical systems are utilized to investigate the streamline patterns along their bifurcations for peristaltic flow under mixed convection effect. Here the peristaltic flow is discussed in a vertical channel. The flow is considered in a two-dimensional symmetric channel as well as an axisymmetric tube. We have evaluated the peristaltic flow of blood base nanofluid. The momentum equations are reduced by employing approximation of low Reynolds number and long wavelength. For the discourse of the path of particle in the wave frame, an arrangement of nonlinear independent differential equations are built up and the strategies for dynamical frameworks are utilized to examine the local bifurcations and their topological changes. Critical points classifications were made by scrutiny of the eigenvalues of the Jacobian matrix. This principle are utilized to divulge the local bifurcation of the critical points encountered for different flow situations. Flow situations marked as: backward flow, trapping or augmented flow. The analysis is disclosed that the number and size of trapped bolus increases in planner channel and decline in axisymmetric channel by increasing Grashof number. Moreover, the decreasing behaviour of temperature is depicted, which clarify the nanofluid as a cooling agent. Graphically, a wide range of topological changes of bifurcations are examined. At long last, to outline the bifurcation the diagram of global bifurcation is utilized.

     

On the interaction between dynamic model dissipation and numerical dissipation due to streamline upwind/Petrov–Galerkin stabilization

Here we investigate the roles of physical and numerical subgrid-scale modeling. The subgrid-scales are represented by a physical large-eddy simulation model, namely the popular dynamic Smagorinsky model (or simply dynamic model), as well as by a numerical model in the form of the well-known streamline upwind/Petrov–Galerkin stabilization for finite element discretizations of advection–diffusion systems. The latter is not a physical model, as its purpose is to provide sufficient algorithmic dissipation for a stable, consistent, and convergent numerical method. We study the interaction between the physical and numerical models by analyzing energy dissipation associated to the two. Based on this study, a modification to the dynamic model is proposed as a way to discount the numerical method’s algorithmic dissipation from the total subgrid-scale dissipation. The modified dynamic model is shown to be successful in simulations of turbulent channel flow.     

Investigation of the LES WALE turbulence model within the lattice Boltzmann framework

Turbulence models which can perform the transition from laminar flow to fully developed turbulent flow are of key importance in industrial applications. A promising approach is the LES WALE model, which can be used without wall functions or global damping functions. The model produces an efficient and fast scheme due to its algebraic character. Additionally, its prediction of the transition from laminar to turbulent regimes has shown promising results. In this work, the LES WALE model is investigated within the lattice Boltzmann framework. For validation purposes, various test cases are presented. First, a channel flow at a Reynolds number of 6876 is investigated. Secondly, the flow around a wall-mounted cube at various Reynolds numbers is determined. The flow regime varies from laminar, to transitional, to fully turbulent conditions at a Reynolds number of 40,000 with respect to the cube height.     

Identification of near-wall flow structures producing large wall transfer rates in turbulent mixed convection channel flow

In this paper, we analyze the influence of aiding and opposing buoyancy on the statistics of the wall transfer rates in a mixed convection turbulent flow at low Reynolds numbers in a vertical plane channel. The analysis is carried out using a database obtained from direct numerical simulations performed with a second-order finite volume code. The aiding/opposing buoyancy produces an overall decrease/increase of the intensities of the fluctuations of the wall shear stresses in comparison with the forced convection flow. The near wall structures responsible for the positive extreme values of the fluctuations of the wall shear stress, educed by a conditional sampling technique, consist in two quasi-parallel counterrotating streamwise vortices that convect high momentum fluid towards the wall in the region between them. Buoyancy produces an overall increase of the Reynolds stresses near the cold wall in comparison with the hot wall. This affects the streamwise length, the orientation, the velocity and the intensity of these flow structures near the two walls of the channel. It is found that the flow structures near the cold wall are shorter and produce more intense fluctuations than those near the hot wall.     

Three-dimensional simulations of viscous folding in diverging microchannels

Three-dimensional simulations on the viscous folding in diverging microchannels reported by Cubaud and Mason (Phys Rev Lett 96(11):114,501, 2006a) are performed using the parallel code BLUE for multiphase flows (Shin et al. in A solver for massively parallel direct numerical simulation of three-dimensional multiphase flows. arXiv:1410.8568). The more viscous liquid \(L_1\) is injected into the channel from the center inlet, and the less viscous liquid \(L_2\) from two side inlets. Liquid \(L_1\) takes the form of a thin filament due to hydrodynamic focusing in the long channel that leads to the diverging region. The thread then becomes unstable to a folding instability, due to the longitudinal compressive stress applied to it by the diverging flow of liquid \(L_2\). Given the long computation time, we were limited to a parameter study comprising five simulations in which the flow rate ratio, the viscosity ratio, the Reynolds number, and the shape of the channel were varied relative to a reference model. In our simulations, the cross section of the thread produced by focusing is elliptical rather than circular. The initial folding axis can be either parallel or perpendicular to the narrow dimension of the chamber. In the former case, the folding slowly transforms via twisting to perpendicular folding, or it may remain parallel. The direction of folding onset is determined by the velocity profile and the elliptical shape of the thread cross section in the channel that feeds the diverging part of the cell. Due to the high viscosity contrast and very low Reynolds numbers, direct numerical simulations of this two-phase flow are very challenging and to our knowledge these are the first three-dimensional direct parallel numerical simulations of viscous threads in microchannels. Our simulations provide good qualitative comparison of the early time onset of the folding instability, however, since the computational time for these simulations is quite long, especially for such viscous threads, long-time comparisons with experiments for quantities such as folding amplitude and frequency are limited.     

槽流拟颗粒模型的并行算法

将流体处理为离散粒子,应用拟颗粒硬球模型来研究槽流中的流动现象,与分子动力学模拟的算法类似,是研究槽流机理的一种行之有效的方法。为了作大规模的模拟,本文采用区域分解算法和消息传递编程模型技术,将该模型串行程序并行化,应用一维划分、单相传递的方法简化了并行算法,采用轮换搜索法来避免硬球碰撞次序对结果的影响。在可扩展的机群系统上用实例计算,通过与串行程序的对比,验证了并行程序的正确性,表明本文设计的并行算法取得了较高的并行计算效率。     

Lattice BGK direct numerical simulation of fully developed turbulence in incompressible plane channel flow

Over the last decade, lattice Boltzmann methods have proven to be reliable and efficient tools for the numerical simulation of complex flows. The specifics of such methods as turbulence solvers, however, are not yet completely documented. This paper provides results of direct numerical simulations (DNS), by a lattice Boltzmann scheme, of fully developed, incompressible, pressure-driven turbulence between two parallel plates. These are validated against results from simulations using a standard Chebyshev pseudo-spectral method. Detailed comparisons, in terms of classical one-point turbulence statistics at moderate Reynolds number, with both numerical and experimental data show remarkable agreement.

Consequently, the choice of numerical method has, in sufficiently resolved DNS computations, no dominant effect at least on simple statistical quantities such as mean flow and Reynolds stresses. Since only the method-independent statistics can be credible, the choice of numerical method for DNS should be determined mainly through considerations of computational efficiency. The expected practical advantages of the lattice Boltzmann method, for instance against pseudo-spectral methods, are found to be significant even for the simple geometry and the moderate Reynolds number considered here. This permits the conclusion that the lattice Boltzmann approach is a promising DNS tool for incompressible turbulence.     

Pseudo-spectral numerical simulation of miscible fluids with a high density ratio

A computational algorithm is described for direct numerical simulation (DNS) of turbulent mixing of two incompressible miscible fluids having greatly differing densities. The algorithm uses Fourier pseudo-spectral methods to compute spatial derivatives and a fractional step method involving the third-order Adams-Bashforth-Moulton predictor-corrector scheme to advance the solution in time. The pressure projection technique is shown to eliminate stability problems, previously observed, when the ratio of the densities in the two streams is as high as 35. The algorithm is investigated in detail for mixing in isotropic homogeneous turbulence of two fluids with a density ratio of 10. The limit on the density ratio is imposed so that the flow is both everywhere turbulent and spatially resolved. Both fluids have the same molecular viscosities, the nominal Schmidt number is 0.7, and the initial nominal Reynolds number based on the integral length scale and the rms velocity is 158. No body force is considered. It is shown that the pressure projection scheme does not limit the temporal accuracy of the solution when periodic boundary conditions are used, but that it significantly affects the stability of the simulations. It is also shown that the rate at which turbulence kinetic energy dissipates averaged for the whole computational domain is almost unaffected by density ratio.     

An algebraic variational multiscale–multigrid method for large eddy simulation of turbulent flow

An algebraic variational multiscale–multigrid method is proposed for large eddy simulation of turbulent flow. Level-transfer operators from plain aggregation algebraic multigrid methods are employed for scale separation. In contrast to earlier approaches based on geometric multigrid methods, this purely algebraic strategy for scale separation obviates any coarse discretization besides the basic one. Operators based on plain aggregation algebraic multigrid provide a projective scale separation, enabling an efficient implementation of the proposed method. The application of the algebraic variational multiscale–multigrid method to turbulent flow in a channel produces results notably closer to reference (direct numerical simulation) results than other state-of-the-art methods both for mean streamwise and root-mean-square velocities. For predicting highly sensitive components of the Reynolds-stress tensor in the context of turbulent recirculating flow in a lid-driven cavity, the algebraic variational multiscale–multigrid method also shows a remarkably good performance in predicting reference results from experiment and direct numerical simulation compared to other methods.