For problems governed by a non-normal operator, the leading eigenvalue of the operator is of limited interest and a more relevant measure of the stability is obtained by considering the harmonic forcing causing the largest system response. Various methods for determining this so-called optimal forcing exist, but they all suffer from great computational expense and are hence not practical for large-scale problems. In the present paper a new method is presented, which is applicable to problems of arbitrary size. The method does not rely on timestepping, but on the solution of linear systems, in which the inverse Laplacian acts as a preconditioner. By formulating the search for the optimal forcing as an eigenvalue problem based on the resolvent operator, repeated system solves amount to power iterations, in which the dominant eigenvalue is seen to correspond to the energy amplification in a system for a given frequency, and the eigenfunction to the corresponding forcing function. Implementation of the method requires only minor modifications of an existing timestepping code, and is applicable to any partial differential equation containing the Laplacian, such as the Navier-Stokes equations. We discuss the method, first, in the context of the linear Ginzburg-Landau equation and then, the two-dimensional lid-driven cavity flow governed by the Navier-Stokes equations. Most importantly, we demonstrate that for the lid-driven cavity, the optimal forcing can be computed using a factor of up to 500 times fewer operator evaluations than the standard method based on exponential timestepping.

This paper proposes the use of a generalized finite difference method for the numerical simulation of free surface single phase flows during mould filling process which are common in some industrial processes particularly in the area of metal casting. A novel and efficient idea for the computation of the normal vectors for free surface flows is introduced and presented for the first time. The incompressible Navier–Stokes equations are numerically solved by the well-known Chorin's projection method. After we showed the main ideas behind the meshless approach, some numerical results in two and three dimensions are presented corresponding to mould filling process simulation.

This paper develops Runge-Kutta PK -based central discontinuous Galerkin (CDG) methods with WENO limiter for the one- and two-dimensional special relativistic hydrodynamical (RHD) equations, K = 1,2,3. Different from the non-central DG methods, the Runge-Kutta CDG methods have to find two approximate solutions defined on mutually dual meshes. For each mesh, the CDG approximate solutions on its dual mesh are used to calculate the flux values in the cell and on the cell boundary so that the approximate solutions on mutually dual meshes are coupled with each other, and the use of numerical flux will be avoided. The WENO limiter is adaptively implemented via two steps: the “troubled” cells are first identified by using a modified TVB minmod function, and then the WENO technique is used to locally reconstruct new polynomials of degree (2K+1) replacing the CDG solutions inside the “troubled” cells by the cell average values of the CDG solutions in the neighboring cells as well as the original cell averages of the “troubled” cells. Because the WENO limiter is only employed for finite “troubled” cells, the computational cost can be as little as possible. The accuracy of the CDG without the numerical dissipation is analyzed and calculation of the flux integrals over the cells is also addressed. Several test problems in one and two dimensions are solved by using our Runge-Kutta CDG methods with WENO limiter. The computations demonstrate that our methods are stable, accurate, and robust in solving complex RHD problems.

This paper presents the extension of a well-established Immersed Boundary (IB)/cut-cell method, the LS-STAG method (Y. Cheny & O. Botella, J. Comput. Phys. Vol. 229, 1043-1076, 2010), to viscoelastic flow computations in complex geometries. We recall that for Newtonian flows, the LS-STAG method is based on the finite-volume method on staggered grids, where the IB boundary is represented by its level-set function. The discretization in the cut-cells is achieved by requiring that global conservation properties equations be satisfied at the discrete level, resulting in a stable and accurate method and, thanks to the level-set representation of the IB boundary, at low computational costs.

In the present work, we consider a general viscoelastic tensorial equation whose particular cases recover well-known constitutive laws such as the Oldroyd-B, White-Metzner and Giesekus models. Based on the LS-STAG discretization of the Newtonian stresses in the cut-cells, we have achieved a compatible velocity-pressure-stress discretization that prevents spurious oscillations of the stress tensor. Applications to popular benchmarks for viscoelastic fluids are presented: the four-to-one abrupt planar contraction flows with sharp and rounded re-entrant corners, for which experimental and numerical results are available. The results show that the LS-STAG method demonstrates an accuracy and robustness comparable to body-fitted methods.

The present work constitutes a fraction of a more extensive study that is devoted to numerical methods in acoustics. More precisely, we address here the interpolation process, which is more and more frequently used in Computational Acoustics–whether it is for enabling multi-stage hybrid calculations, or for easing the proper handling of complex configurations via advanced techniques such as Chimera grids or Immersed Boundary Conditions. In that regard, we focus on high-order interpolation schemes, so as to analyze their intrinsic features and to assess their effective accuracy. Taking advantage of specific insights that had been previously achieved by the present authors regarding standard high-order interpolation schemes (of centered nature), we here focus on their so-called spectral-like optimized counterparts (of both centered and noncentered nature). The latter spectral-like optimized schemes are analyzed thoroughly thanks to dedicated theoretical developments, which allow highlighting better what their strengths and weaknesses are. Among others, the various ways such interpolation schemes can degrade acoustic signals they are applied to are carefully investigated from a theoretical point-of-view. Besides that, specific criteria that could help in optimizing interpolation schemes better are provided, along with generic rules about how to minimize the signal degradation induced by existing interpolation schemes, in practice.

Implicit time integration schemes are popular because their relaxed stability constraints can result in better computational efficiency. For time-accurate unsteady simulations, it has been well recognized that the inherent dispersion and dissipation errors of implicit Runge-Kutta schemes will reduce the computational accuracy for large time steps. Yet for steady state simulations using the time-dependent governing equations, these errors are often overlooked because the intermediate solutions are of less interest. Based on the model equation dy/dt=(μ+iλ)y of scalar convection diffusion systems, this study examines the stability limits, dispersion and dissipation errors of four diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta-type schemes on the complex (μ+iλ)Δt plane. Through numerical experiments, it is shown that, as the time steps increase, the A-stable implicit schemes may not always have reduced CPU time and the computations may not always remain stable, due to the inherent dispersion and dissipation errors of the implicit Runge-Kutta schemes. The dissipation errors may decelerate the convergence rate, and the dispersion errors may cause large oscillations of the numerical solutions. These errors, especially those of high wavenumber components, grow at large time steps. They lead to difficulty in the convergence of the numerical computations, and result in increasing CPU time or even unstable computations as the time step increases. It is concluded that an optimal implicit time integration scheme for steady state simulations should have high dissipation and low dispersion.

The linear operator plays an important role in the computational process of Homotopy Analysis Method (HAM). In HAM frame any kind of linear operator can be chosen to develop a solution. Hence, it is easy to introduce the modified/physical parameter dependent linear operators. The effective use of these operators has been judged through solving fluid flow problems. Modification in linear operators affects the solution and improves the computational efficiency of HAM for larger values of parameters. The convergence rate of the solution is rapid and several times higher resulting in lesser computational time.

This paper presents a numerical and experimental study on hydrodynamic behavior of thin liquid films in rectangular domains. Three-dimensional computer simulations were performed using the lattice Boltzmann equation method (LBM). The liquid films laying on solid and liquid substrates are considered. The rupture of liquid films in computations is initiated via the thermocapillary (Marangoni) effect by applying an initial spatially localized temperature perturbation. The rupture scenario is found to depend on the shape of the temperature distribution and on the wettability of the solid substrate. For a wettable solid substrate, complete rupture does not occur: a residual thin liquid film remains at the substrate in the region of pseudo-rupture. For a non-wettable solid substrate, a sharp-peaked axisymmetric temperature distribution induces the rupture at the center of symmetry where the temperature is maximal. Axisymmetric temperature distribution with a flat-peaked temperature profile initiates rupture of the liquid film along a circle at some distance from the center of symmetry. The outer boundary of the rupture expands, while the inner liquid disk transforms into a toroidal figure and ultimately into an oscillating droplet.

We also apply the LBM to simulations of an evolution of one or two holes in liquid films for two-layer systems of immiscible fluids in a rectangular cell. The computed patterns are successfully compared against the results of experimental visualizations. Both the experiments and the simulations demonstrate that the initially circular holes evolved in the rectangular cell undergoing drastic changes of their shape under the effects of the surface tension and gravity. In the case of two interacting holes, the disruption of the liquid bridge separating two holes is experimentally observed and numerically simulated.

In this paper, an improved singular boundary method (SBM), viewed as one kind of modified method of fundamental solution (MFS), is firstly applied for the numerical analysis of two-dimensional (2D) Stokes flow problems. The key issue of the SBM is the determination of the origin intensity factor used to remove the singularity of the fundamental solution and its derivatives. The new contribution of this study is that the origin intensity factors for the velocity, traction and pressure are derived, and based on that, the SBM formulations for 2D Stokes flow problems are presented. Several examples are provided to verify the correctness and robustness of the presented method. The numerical results clearly demonstrate the potentials of the present SBM for solving 2D Stokes flow problems.

A boundary condition-implemented immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann method (IB-LBM) is presented in this work. The present approach is an improvement to the conventional IB-LBM. In the conventional IB-LBM, the no-slip boundary condition is only approximately satisfied. As a result, there is flow penetration to the solid boundary. Another drawback of conventional IB-LBM is the use of Dirac delta function interpolation, which only has the first order of accuracy. In this work, the no-slip boundary condition is directly implemented, and used to correct the velocity at two adjacent mesh points from both sides of the boundary point. The velocity correction is made through the second-order polynomial interpolation rather than the first-order delta function interpolation. Obviously, the two drawbacks of conventional IB-LBM are removed in the present study. Another important contribution of this paper is to present a simple way to compute the hydrodynamic forces on the boundary from Newton’s second law. To validate the proposed method, the two-dimensional vortex decaying problem and incompressible flow over a circular cylinder are simulated. As shown in the present results, the flow penetration problem is eliminated, and the obtained results compare very well with available data in the literature.

This paper develops a high-order accurate gas-kinetic scheme in the framework of the finite volume method for the one- and two-dimensional flow simulations, which is an extension of the third-order accurate gas-kinetic scheme [Q.B. Li, K. Xu, and S. Fu, J. Comput. Phys., 229(2010), 6715-6731] and the second-order accurate gas-kinetic scheme [K. Xu, J. Comput. Phys., 171(2001), 289-335]. It is formed by two parts: quartic polynomial reconstruction of the macroscopic variables and fourth-order accurate flux evolution. The first part reconstructs a piecewise cell-center based quartic polynomial and a cell-vertex based quartic polynomial according to the “initial” cell average approximation of macroscopic variables to recover locally the non-equilibrium and equilibrium single particle velocity distribution functions around the cell interface. It is in view of the fact that all macroscopic variables become moments of a single particle velocity distribution function in the gas-kinetic theory. The generalized moment limiter is employed there to suppress the possible numerical oscillation. In the second part, the macroscopic flux at the cell interface is evolved in fourth-order accuracy by means of the simple particle transport mechanism in the microscopic level, i.e. free transport and the Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook (BGK) collisions. In other words, the fourth-order flux evolution is based on the solution (i.e. the particle velocity distribution function) of the BGK model for the Boltzmann equation. Several 1D and 2D test problems are numerically solved by using the proposed high-order accurate gas-kinetic scheme. By comparing with the exact solutions or the numerical solutions obtained the second-order or third-order accurate gas-kinetic scheme, the computations demonstrate that our scheme is effective and accurate for simulating invisid and viscous fluid flows, and the accuracy of the high-order GKS depends on the choice of the (numerical) collision time.

A reconstruction-based discontinuous Galerkin (RDG(P1P2)) method, a variant of P1P2 method, is presented for the solution of the compressible Euler equations on arbitrary grids. In this method, an in-cell reconstruction, designed to enhance the accuracy of the discontinuous Galerkin method, is used to obtain a quadratic polynomial solution (P2) from the underlying linear polynomial (P1) discontinuous Galerkin solution using a least-squares method. The stencils used in the reconstruction involve only the von Neumann neighborhood (face-neighboring cells) and are compact and consistent with the underlying DG method. The developed RDG method is used to compute a variety of flow problems on arbitrary meshes to demonstrate its accuracy, efficiency, robustness, and versatility. The numerical results indicate that this RDG(P1P2) method is third-order accurate, and outperforms the third-order DG method (DG(P2)) in terms of both computing costs and storage requirements.

A concept of “static reconstruction” and “dynamic reconstruction” was introduced for higher-order (third-order or more) numerical methods in our previous work. Based on this concept, a class of hybrid DG/FV methods had been developed for one-dimensional conservation law using a “hybrid reconstruction” approach, and extended to two-dimensional scalar equations on triangular and Cartesian/triangular hybrid grids. In the hybrid DG/FV schemes, the lower-order derivatives of the piece-wise polynomial are computed locally in a cell by the traditional DG method (called as “dynamic reconstruction”), while the higher-order derivatives are re-constructed by the “static reconstruction” of the FV method, using the known lower-order derivatives in the cell itself and in its adjacent neighboring cells. In this paper, the hybrid DG/FV schemes are extended to two-dimensional Euler equations on triangular and Cartesian/triangular hybrid grids. Some typical test cases are presented to demonstrate the performance of the hybrid DG/FV methods, including the standard vortex evolution problem with exact solution, isentropic vortex/weak shock wave interaction, subsonic flows past a circular cylinder and a three-element airfoil (30P30N), transonic flow past a NACA0012 airfoil. The accuracy study shows that the hybrid DG/FV method achieves the desired third-order accuracy, and the applications demonstrate that they can capture the flow structure accurately, and can reduce the CPU time and memory requirement greatly than the traditional DG method with the same order of accuracy.

In this paper, the high-order space-time discontinuous Galerkin cell vertex scheme (DG-CVS) developed by the authors for hyperbolic conservation laws is extended for time dependent diffusion equations. In the extension, the treatment of the diffusive flux is exactly the same as that for the advective flux. Thanks to the Riemann-solver-free and reconstruction-free features of DG-CVS, both the advective flux and the diffusive flux are evaluated using continuous information across the cell interface. As a result, the resulting formulation with diffusive fluxes present is still consistent and does not need any extra ad hoc techniques to cure the common “variational crime” problem when traditional DG methods are applied to diffusion problems. For this reason, DG-CVS is conceptually simpler than other existing DG-typed methods.

In the present work adaptation in meshless framework is proposed. The grid adaptation or mesh adaptation is quite well developed area in case of conventional grid based solvers and is popularly known as Adaptive mesh refinement (AMR). In such cases the adaptation is done by subdividing the cells or elements into finer cells or elements. In case of meshless methods there are no cells or elements but only a cloud of points. In this work we propose to achieve the meshless adaptation by locally refining the point density in the regions demanding higher resolution. This results into an adaptive enriched cloud of points. We call this method as Adaptive Cloud Refinement (ACR). The meshless solvers need connectivity information, which is a set of neighboring nodes. It is crucial part of meshless solvers. Obviously because of refining point density, the connectivity of nodes in such regions gets modified and hence has to be updated. An efficient connectivity update must exploit the fact that the node distribution would be largely unaffected except the region of adaptation. Hence connectivity updating needs to be done locally, only in these regions. In this paper we also present an extremely fast algorithm to update connectivity over adapted cloud called as ACU (Automatic Connectivity Update).

An application of the meshless Local Radial Basis Function Collocation Method (LRBFCM) in solution of incompressible turbulent combined forced and natural convection is for the first time explored in the present paper. The turbulent flow equations are described by the low-Re number к – ε model with Launder and Sharma and Abe et al. closure coefficients. The involved temperature, velocity, pressure, turbulent kinetic energy and dissipation fields are represented on overlapping 5-noded sub-domains through the collocation by using multiquadrics Radial Basis Functions (RBF). The involved first and second order partial derivatives of the fields are calculated from the respective derivatives of the RBF’s. The involved equations are solved through the explicit time stepping. The pressure-velocity coupling is based on Chorin’s fractional step method. The adaptive upwinding technique, proposed by Lin and Atluri , is used because of the convection dominated situation. The solution procedure is represented for a 2D upward channel flow with differentially heated walls. The results have been assessed by achieving a reasonable agreement with the direct numerical simulation of Kasagi and Nishimura for Reynolds number 4494, based on the channel width, and Grash of number 9.6×105. The advantages of the represented mesh-free approach are its simplicity, accuracy, similar coding in 2D and 3D, and straightforward applicability in non-uniform node arrangements.

The objective of this paper is to seek an alternative to the numerical simulation of the Navier-Stokes equations by a method similar to solving the BGK-type modeled lattice Boltzmann equation. The proposed method is valid for both gas and liquid flows. A discrete flux scheme (DFS) is used to derive the governing equations for two distribution functions; one for mass and another for thermal energy. These equations are derived by considering an infinitesimally small control volume with a velocity lattice representation for the distribution functions. The zero-order moment equation of the mass distribution function is used to recover the continuity equation, while the first-order moment equation recovers the linear momentum equation. The recovered equations are correct to the first order of the Knudsen number (Kn); thus, satisfying the continuum assumption. Similarly, the zero-order moment equation of the thermal energy distribution function is used to recover the thermal energy equation. For aerodynamic flows, it is shown that the finite difference solution of the DFS is equivalent to solving the lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE) with a BGK-type model and a specified equation of state. Thus formulated, the DFS can be used to simulate a variety of aerodynamic and hydrodynamic flows. Examples of classical aeroacoustics, compressible flow with shocks, incompressible isothermal and non-isothermal Couette flows, stratified flow in a cavity, and double diffusive flow inside a rectangle are used to demonstrate the validity and extent of the DFS. Very good to excellent agreement with known analytical and/or numerical solutions is obtained; thus lending evidence to the DFS approach as an alternative to solving the Navier-Stokes equations for fluid flow simulations.

Realization of the Shan-Chen multiphase flow lattice Boltzmann model is considered in the framework of the higher-order Galilean invariant lattices. The present multiphase lattice Boltzmann model is used in two-dimensional simulation of droplet collisions at high Weber numbers. Results are found to be in a good agreement with experimental findings.

We perform a comparison in terms of accuracy and CPU time between second order BDF semi-Lagrangian and Lagrange-Galerkin schemes in combination with high order finite element method. The numerical results show that for polynomials of degree 2 semi-Lagrangian schemes are faster than Lagrange-Galerkin schemes for the same number of degrees of freedom, however, for the same level of accuracy both methods are about the same in terms of CPU time. For polynomials of degree larger than 2, Lagrange-Galerkin schemes behave better than semi-Lagrangian schemes in terms of both accuracy and CPU time; specially, for polynomials of degree 8 or larger. Also, we have performed tests on the parallelization of these schemes and the speedup obtained is quasi-optimal even with more than 100 processors.

A reconstruction-based discontinuous Galerkin method is presented for the solution of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations on arbitrary grids. In this method, an in-cell reconstruction is used to obtain a higher-order polynomial representation of the underlying discontinuous Galerkin polynomial solution and an inter-cell reconstruction is used to obtain a continuous polynomial solution on the union of two neighboring, interface-sharing cells. The in-cell reconstruction is designed to enhance the accuracy of the discontinuous Galerkin method by increasing the order of the underlying polynomial solution. The inter-cell reconstruction is devised to remove an interface discontinuity of the solution and its derivatives and thus to provide a simple, accurate, consistent, and robust approximation to the viscous and heat fluxes in the Navier-Stokes equations. A parallel strategy is also devised for the resulting reconstruction discontinuous Galerkin method, which is based on domain partitioning and Single Program Multiple Data (SPMD) parallel programming model. The RDG method is used to compute a variety of compressible flow problems on arbitrary meshes to demonstrate its accuracy, efficiency, robustness, and versatility. The numerical results demonstrate that this RDG method is third-order accurate at a cost slightly higher than its underlying second-order DG method, at the same time providing a better performance than the third order DG method, in terms of both computing costs and storage requirements.