A comparison between IBM with feedback forcing and a volume penalization method for compressible flows

ABSTRACTIn the present study, a high‐order hybrid compact‐weighted essentially non‐oscillatory (WENO) scheme is applied in conjunction with the immersed boundary method for efficiently computing compressible inviscid flows around two‐dimensional solid bodies. For this aim, the two‐dimensional unsteady compressible Euler equations written in the conservative form are considered and they are discretized in the space by using the hybrid fifth‐order compact‐WENO (CW) finite‐difference scheme and the third‐order explicit TVD Runge–Kutta scheme in the time. The solid bodies are appropriately imposed to the computational domain by using the immersed boundary method as an effective procedure in modeling the complex configurations without the difficulties usually encountered in generating the computational grid over such problems. Different test cases are simulated by applying the hybrid CW immersed boundary method and the present results are compared with those of available finite‐difference immersed boundary methods. To further assess the solution method applied, the present results are also obtained by the high‐order WENO immersed boundary scheme, and these two high‐order accurate solution procedures are thoroughly compared with each other. The main advantage of using the hybrid CW finite‐difference immersed boundary method applied here is that it provides a more accurate solution with lower computational cost in comparison with the traditional and high‐order WENO finite‐difference immersed boundary methods. It is shown that the solution procedure based on the hybrid CW scheme implemented via the immersed boundary method has still reasonable shock‐capturing features and it can effectively be applied for accurately computing the compressible inviscid flows with the complicated flow structures and the embedded discontinuities such as the shocks over the complicated geometries.

A Brinkman penalization method for compressible flows in complex geometries

Immersed boundary method for high-order flux reconstruction based on volume penalization

Reducing the resistance of compressible flow around a blunt body is of great interest in engineering applications, while an efficient shape optimization method for compressible flows remains far from well established, especially for high Mach numbers. To this end, a volume penalization method for simulating compressible flows past a no-slip and isothermal solid is established by introducing an artificial body force and a heat sink into the governing equations. The level-set functions are introduced as design variables, and the cost functional is defined as the total drag acting on the solid. Then, a continuous adjoint-based shape optimization algorithm for drag reduction is developed by deriving the adjoint equations, the adjoint boundary conditions, and the shape update formula. Both the forward and adjoint simulations are verified by existing studies. The results show that the relative deviations of the drag coefficients obtained in the present study from those reported in the reference studies are around 5% at most, and also a comparable drag reduction rate and also optimal shapes can be reproduced by the present optimization scheme for benchmark problems at relatively low Mach numbers considered in previous studies. Finally, the present method is applied to shape optimization of an initially two-dimensional cylinder and also a three-dimensional sphere in the transonic regime of Ma∞ = 1.2. The drag reduction of over 20% is achieved for both two-dimensional and three-dimensional cases.

Numerical simulation of a square cavity was conducted to validate an implementation of an Immersed Boundary Method (IBM). The cavity consists of two differentially heated side walls and adiabatic top and bottom walls. A Cartesian grid is used with a finite volume, fractional step pressure correction method. Simulations use Dirichlet boundaries for vertical walls and Neumann boundaries for horizontal walls. The Immersed Boundary Method involves modifying the Navier--Stokes equations to include a forcing function in the momentum and energy equations that creates a virtual boundary. This method is useful because the boundary does not necessarily have to coincide with grid points; however, it is much less computationally expensive than other similar methods such as the cut cell method. The IBM is commonly used in simulations involving complex objects and can also accommodate moving boundaries. A standard numerical simulation with grid aligned with the boundary is first compared with previous results. The same geometry is then simulated by tilting the grid at various angles and using the IBM for each of the walls, and comparing these results with those initially obtained. We detail the implementation method and common problems associated with this. Velocity and temperature profiles are presented and the IBM is shown to maintain second order spatial accuracy. References E. A. Fadlun, R. Verzicco, P. Orlandi, and J. Mohd-Yusof. Combined immersed-boundary finite-difference methods for three-dimensional complex flow simulations. Journal of Computational Physics, 161(1):35--60, 2000. doi:10.1006/jcph.2000.6484 T. Gao, Y. H. Tseng, and X. Y. Lu. An improved hybrid cartesian/immersed boundary method for fluid-solid flows. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids, 55(12):1189--1211, 2007. doi:10.1002/fld.1522 M. P. Kirkpatrick and S. W. Armfield. Experimental and large eddy simulation results for the purging of salt water from a cavity by an overflow of fresh water. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 48(2):341--359, 2005. doi:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2004.08.016 M. P. Kirkpatrick, S. W. Armfield, and J. H. Kent. A representation of curved boundaries for the solution of the navier-stokes equations on a staggered three-dimensional cartesian grid. Journal of Computational Physics, 184(1):1--36, 2003. doi:10.1016/S0021-9991(02)00013-X B. P. Leonard and Simin Mokhtari. Beyond first-order upwinding: The ultra-sharp alternative for non-oscillatory steady-state simulation of convection. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, 30(4):729--766, 1990. doi:10.1002/nme.1620300412 S. H. Peng and L. Davidson. Large eddy simulation for turbulent buoyant flow in a confined cavity. volume 22, pages 323--331, 2001. doi:10.1016/S0142-727X(01)00095-9 C. S. Peskin. Numerical-analysis of blood-flow in heart. Journal of Computational Physics, 25(3):220--252, 1977. doi:10.1016/0021-9991(77)90100-0 J. Salat, S. Xin, P. Joubert, A. Sergent, F. Penot, and P. Le Quere. Experimental and numerical investigation of turbulent natural convection in a large air-filled cavity. International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow, 25:824--832, 2004. doi:10.1016/j.ijheatfluidflow.2004.04.003 Y. H. Tseng and J. H. Ferziger. A ghost-cell immersed boundary method for flow in complex geometry. Journal of Computational Physics, 192(2):593--623, 2003. doi:10.1016/j/jcp.2003.07.024 N. Zhang and Z. C. Zheng. An improved direct-forcing immersed-boundary method for finite difference applications. Journal of Computational Physics, 221(1):250--268, 2007. doi:10.1016/j.jcp.2006.06.012 N. Zhang, Z. C. Zheng, and S. Eckels. Study of heat-transfer on the surface of a circular cylinder in flow using an immersed-boundary method. International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow, 29(6):1558--1566, 2008. doi:10.1016/j.ijheatfluidflow.2008.08.009

Unsteady turbulent flow simulations on moving Cartesian grids using immersed boundary method and high-order scheme

A hybrid immersed boundary method for dense particle-laden flows

ABSTRACTTwo methods for solid body representation in flow simulations available in the Pencil Code are the immersed boundary method and overset grids. These methods are quite different in terms of computational cost, flexibility and numerical accuracy. We present here an investigation of the use of the different methods with the purpose of assessing their strengths and weaknesses. At present, the overset grid method in the Pencil Code can only be used for representing cylinders in the flow. For this task, it surpasses the immersed boundary method in yielding highly accurate solutions at moderate computational costs. This is partly due to local grid stretching and a body-conformal grid, and partly due to the possibility of working with local time step restrictions on different grids. The immersed boundary method makes up the lack of computational efficiency with flexibility in regard to application to complex geometries, due to a recent extension of the method that allows our implementation of it to represent arbitrarily shaped objects in the flow.

Suspension flows are ubiquitous in many fields, and reducing computational costs for numerical simulations of suspension flows remains a great challenge. Numerical simulations of particle-laden flows were performed here using the regularized lattice Boltzmann method (RLBM). RLBM, coupled with the virtual flux method (VFM) or the immersed boundary method (IBM) with the multi-direct forcing approach, conducted a series of three simulations for stationary and moving boundaries. The VFM and IBM results were compared for validation, and the computational efficiency was evaluated. For the two simulations using stationary and moving boundaries (i.e., a steady flow past a stationary cylinder and a plane Poiseuille flow including a single moving circular particle), the results based on the VFM and IBM were qualitatively comparable. The computational time for IBM was longer than that for VFM due to the iterations in its scheme. The pressure-driven suspension flow simulations showed that a dilute suspension's (<5%) relative viscosity was almost equivalent. The difference between the results obtained by the VFM and IBM in the semidilute regime (>10%) was discussed in terms of particle rotational motion. Even though the scalability for parallel computing was comparable between the VFM and IBM, the computational time could be effectively reduced by using the VFM instead of the IBM because of the increased suspension concentration.

Comparisons of two representative methods classified as immersed boundary and domain methods

In this paper, immersed boundary method (IBM) is evaluated in a ribbed duct geometry to show the potential of simulating a complex geometry with a simple structured grid. In this framework, instead of resolving the geometry with a body conforming grid, the geometry is immersed into a volume background grid, and the immersed boundary cuts through the background grid and catches the geometry features. A fully developed rib roughed duct geometry is simulated with IBM at a bulk Reynolds number of 1.5 × 104. Three cases have been examined: a stationary case; a case of positive rotation at a rotation number (Ro = ΩDh/U) of 0.3 (destabilizing); and a case of negative rotation at Ro = −0.3 (stabilizing). The dynamic Smagorinsky subgird stress model is used with a second-order central difference discretization. Time averaged mean, turbulent quantities are presented, together with heat transfer. It is found that in general, the simulation with IBM resolves the bulk mean features of the flow with very good accuracy. In the stationary and positive rotation cases, the recirculation patterns and reattachment point predicted by IBM agree very well with the experiment data. In the negative rotation case, prediction of the recirculation zone shows some differences with the experiment. The IBM approach over predicts the turbulent statistics under destabilizing conditions. The overall good agreement between IBM and experimental results suggests that IBM is a promising method to apply to complex blade geometries.

Abstract. This study describes the numerical implementation, verification and validation of an immersed boundary method (IBM) in the atmospheric solver Meso-NH for applications to urban flow modeling. The IBM represents the fluid–solid interface by means of a level-set function and models the obstacles as part of the resolved scales. The IBM is implemented by means of a three-step procedure: first, an explicit-in-time forcing is developed based on a novel ghost-cell technique that uses multiple image points instead of the classical single mirror point. The second step consists of an implicit step projection whereby the right-hand side of the Poisson equation is modified by means of a cut-cell technique to satisfy the incompressibility constraint. The condition of non-permeability is achieved at the embedded fluid–solid interface by an iterative procedure applied on the modified Poisson equation. In the final step, the turbulent fluxes and the wall model used for large-eddy simulations (LESs) are corrected, and a wall model is proposed to ensure consistency of the subgrid scales with the IBM treatment. In the second of part of the paper, the IBM is verified and validated for several analytical and benchmark test cases of flows around single bluff bodies with an increasing level of complexity. The analysis showed that the Meso-NH model (MNH) with IBM reproduces the expected physical features of the flow, which are also found in the atmosphere at much larger scales. Finally, the IBM is validated in the LES mode against the Mock Urban Setting Test (MUST) field experiment, which is characterized by strong roughness caused by the presence of a set of obstacles placed in the atmospheric boundary layer in nearly neutral stability conditions. The Meso-NH IBM–LES reproduces with reasonable accuracy both the mean flow and turbulent fluctuations observed in this idealized urban environment.

A large eddy simulation (LES) methodology for turbulent flows in complex rigid geometries is developed using the immersed boundary method (IBM). In the IBM body force terms are added to the momentum equations to represent a complex rigid geometry on a fixed Cartesian mesh. IBM combines the efficiency inherent in using a fixed Cartesian grid and the ease of tracking the immersed boundary at a set of moving Lagrangian points. Specific implementation strategies for the IBM are described in this paper. A two-sided forcing scheme is presented and shown to work well for moving rigid boundary problems. Turbulence and flow unsteadiness are addressed by LES using higher order numerical schemes with an accurate and robust subgrid scale (SGS) stress model. The combined LES–IBM methodology is computationally cost-effective for turbulent flows in moving geometries with prescribed surface trajectories. Several example problems are solved to illustrate the capability of the IBM and LES methodologies. The IBM is validated for the laminar flow past a heated cylinder in a channel and the combined LES–IBM methodology is validated for turbulent film-cooling flows involving heat transfer. In both cases predictions are in good agreement with measurements. LES–IBM is then used to study turbulent fluid mixing inside the complex geometry of a trapped vortex combustor. Finally, to demonstrate the full potential of LES–IBM, a complex moving geometry problem of stator–rotor interaction is solved. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A volume penalization-based immersed boundary technique is developed and thoroughly validated for fluid flow problems, specifically flow over bluff bodies. The proposed algorithm has been implemented in an open source field operation and manipulation (OpenFOAM), a computational fluid dynamics solver. The immersed boundary method offers the advantage of inserting a complex solid object inside a Cartesian grid system, and therefore, the governing equations can be applied to such a simpler grid arrangement. For capturing the fluid–solid interface more accurately, the grid is refined near the solid surface using topoSetDict and refineMeshDict utilities in OpenFOAM. In order to avoid any numerical oscillation and to compute the gradients accurately near the interface, the present volume penalization method (VPM) is integrated with a signed distance function, which is also referred to as a level-set function. Benchmark problems, such as flows around a cylinder and a sphere, are considered and thoroughly validated with the results available in the literature. For the flow over a stationary cylinder, the Reynolds number is varied so that it covers from a steady two-dimensional flow to an unsteady three-dimensional flow. The capability of the present solver has been further verified by considering the flow past a vibrating cylinder in the cross-stream direction. In addition, a flow over a sphere, which is inherently three-dimensional due to its geometrical shape, is validated in both steady and unsteady regimes. The results obtained by the present VPM show good agreement with those obtained by a body-fitted grid using the same numerical scheme as that of the VPM, and also with those reported in the literature. The present results indicate that the VPM-based immersed boundary technique can be widely applicable to scientific and engineering problems involving flow past stationary and moving bluff bodies of arbitrary geometry.

In this work, the explicit boundary-condition-enforced immersed boundary method (EIBM) and the lattice Boltzmann flux solver (LBFS) are integrated into OpenFOAM to efficiently solve incompressible flows with complex geometries and moving boundaries. The EIBM applies the explicit technique to greatly improve the computational efficiency of the original boundary-condition-enforced immersed boundary method. In addition, the improved EIBM inherits the accurate interpretation of the no-slip boundary condition and the simple implementation from the original one. The LBFS uses the finite volume method to discretize the recovered macroscopic governing equations from the lattice Boltzmann equation. It enjoys the explicit relationship between the pressure and density, which avoids solving the pressure Poisson equation and thus saves much computational cost. Another attractive feature of the LBFS lies in its simultaneous evaluation of the inviscid and viscous fluxes. OpenFOAM, as an open-source CFD platform, has drawn increasing attention from the CFD community and has been proven to be a powerful tool for various problems. Thus, implementing the EIBM and LBFS into such a popular platform can advance the practical application of these two methods and may provide an effective alternative for complicated incompressible flow problems. The performance of the integrated solver in OpenFOAM is comprehensively assessed by comparing it with the widely used numerical solver in OpenFOAM, namely, the Pressure-Implicit with Splitting of Operators (PISO) algorithm with the IBM. A series of representative test cases with stationary and moving boundaries are simulated. Numerical results confirm that the present method does not have any streamline penetration and achieves the second-order accuracy in space. Therefore, the present method implemented in the open-source platform OpenFOAM may have good potential and can serve as a powerful tool for practical engineering problems.