High Order Methods For Incompressible Fluid Flow

Publisher Description

The study of incompressible ?ows is vital to many areas of science and te- nology. This includes most of the ?uid dynamics that one ?nds in everyday life from the ?ow of air in a room to most weather phenomena. Inundertakingthesimulationofincompressible?uid?ows,oneoftentakes many issues for granted. As these ?ows become more realistic, the problems encountered become more vexing from a computational point-of-view. These range from the benign to the profound. At once, one must contend with the basic character of incompressible ?ows where sound waves have been analytically removed from the ?ow. As a consequence vortical ?ows have been analytically “preconditioned,” but the ?ow has a certain non-physical character (sound waves of in?nite velocity). At low speeds the ?ow will be deterministic and ordered, i.e., laminar. Laminar ?ows are governed by a balance between the inertial and viscous forces in the ?ow that provides the stability. Flows are often characterized by a dimensionless number known as the Reynolds number, which is the ratio of inertial to viscous forces in a ?ow. Laminar ?ows correspond to smaller Reynolds numbers. Even though laminar ?ows are organized in an orderly manner, the ?ows may exhibit instabilities and bifurcation phenomena which may eventually lead to transition and turbulence. Numerical modelling of suchphenomenarequireshighaccuracyandmostimportantlytogaingreater insight into the relationship of the numerical methods with the ?ow physics.

The development of high-order accurate numerical discretization techniques for irregular domains and meshes is often cited as one of the remaining chal lenges facing the field of computational fluid dynamics. In structural me chanics, the advantages of high-order finite element approximation are widely recognized. This is especially true when high-order element approximation is combined with element refinement (h-p refinement). In computational fluid dynamics, high-order discretization methods are infrequently used in the com putation of compressible fluid flow. The hyperbolic nature of the governing equations and the presence of solution discontinuities makes high-order ac curacy difficult to achieve. Consequently, second-order accurate methods are still predominately used in industrial applications even though evidence sug gests that high-order methods may offer a way to significantly improve the resolution and accuracy for these calculations. To address this important topic, a special course was jointly organized by the Applied Vehicle Technology Panel of NATO's Research and Technology Organization (RTO), the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, and the Numerical Aerospace Simulation Division at the NASA Ames Research Cen ter. The NATO RTO sponsored course entitled "Higher Order Discretization Methods in Computational Fluid Dynamics" was held September 14-18,1998 at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Belgium and September 21-25,1998 at the NASA Ames Research Center in the United States.

This book consists of important contributions by world-renowned experts on adaptive high-order methods in computational fluid dynamics (CFD). It covers several widely used, and still intensively researched methods, including the discontinuous Galerkin, residual distribution, finite volume, differential quadrature, spectral volume, spectral difference, PNPM, and correction procedure via reconstruction methods. The main focus is applications in aerospace engineering, but the book should also be useful in many other engineering disciplines including mechanical, chemical and electrical engineering. Since many of these methods are still evolving, the book will be an excellent reference for researchers and graduate students to gain an understanding of the state of the art and remaining challenges in high-order CFD methods.

This well-written book explains the theory of spectral methods and their application to the computation of viscous incompressible fluid flow, in clear and elementary terms. With many examples throughout, the work will be useful to those teaching at the graduate level, as well as to researchers working in the area.

The book introduces modern high-order methods for computational fluid dynamics. As compared to low order finite volumes predominant in today's production codes, higher order discretizations significantly reduce dispersion errors, the main source of error in long-time simulations of flow at higher Reynolds numbers. A major goal of this book is to teach the basics of the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method in terms of its finite volume and finite element ingredients. It also discusses the computational efficiency of high-order methods versus state-of-the-art low order methods in the finite difference context, given that accuracy requirements in engineering are often not overly strict. The book mainly addresses researchers and doctoral students in engineering, applied mathematics, physics and high-performance computing with a strong interest in the interdisciplinary aspects of computational fluid dynamics. It is also well-suited for practicing computational engineers who would like to gain an overview of discontinuous Galerkin methods, modern algorithmic realizations, and high-performance implementations.

Spectral methods have long been popular in direct and large eddy simulation of turbulent flows, but their use in areas with complex-geometry computational domains has historically been much more limited. More recently the need to find accurate solutions to the viscous flow equations around complex configurations has led to the development of high-order discretisation procedures on unstructured meshes, which are also recognised as more efficient for solution of time-dependent oscillatory solutions over long time periods. Here Karniadakis and Sherwin present a much-updated and expanded version of their successful first edition covering the recent and significant progress in multi-domain spectral methods at both the fundamental and application level. Containing over 50% new material, including discontinuous Galerkin methods, non-tensorial nodal spectral element methods in simplex domains, and stabilisation and filtering techniques, this text aims to introduce a wider audience to the use of spectral/hp element methods with particular emphasis on their application to unstructured meshes. It provides a detailed explanation of the key concepts underlying the methods along with practical examples of their derivation and application, and is aimed at students, academics and practitioners in computational fluid mechanics, applied and numerical mathematics, computational mechanics, aerospace and mechanical engineering and climate/ocean modelling.