Fast spectral solution of the generalized Enskog equation for dense gases

AbstractWe propose a fast spectral method for solving the generalized Enskog equation for dense gases. For elastic collisions, the method solves the Enskog collision operator with a computational cost of O(Md−1Ndlog⁡N), where d is the dimension of the velocity space, and Md−1 and Nd are the number of solid angle and velocity space discretizations, respectively. For inelastic collisions, the cost is N times higher. The accuracy of this fast spectral method is assessed by comparing our numerical results with analytical solutions of the spatially-homogeneous relaxation of heated granular gases. We also compare our results for force-driven Poiseuille flow and Fourier flow with those from molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations. Although it is phenomenological, the generalized Enskog equation is capable of capturing the flow dynamics of dense granular gases, and the fast spectral method is accurate and efficient. As example applications, Fourier and Couette flows of a dense granular gas are investigated. In addition to the temperature profile, both the density and the high-energy tails in the velocity distribution functions are found to be strongly influenced by the restitution coefficient

Fast spectral solution of the generalised Enskog equation for dense gases

We propose a fast spectral method for solving the generalized Enskog equation for dense gases. For elastic collisions, the method solves the Enskog collision operator with a computational cost of O(Md-1Nd logN), where d is the dimension of the velocity space, and Md-1 and Nd are the number of solid angle and velocity space discretizations, respectively. For inelastic collisions, the cost is N times higher. The accuracy of this fast spectral method is assessed by comparing our numerical results with analytical solutions of the spatially homogeneous relaxation of heated granular gases. We also compare our results for force driven Poiseuille flow and Fourier flow with those from molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations. Although it is phenomenological, the generalized Enskog equation is capable of capturing the flow dynamics of dense granular gases, and the fast spectral method is accurate and efficient. As example applications, Fourier and Couette flows of a dense granular gas are investigated. In additional to the temperature profile, both the density and the high-energy tails in the velocity distribution functions are found to be strongly influenced by the restitution coefficient

A comparative study of discrete velocity methods for low-speed rarefied gas flows

In the study of rarefied gas dynamics, the discrete velocity method (DVM) has been widely employed to solve the gas kinetic equations. Although various versions of DVM have been developed, their performance, in terms of modeling accuracy and computational efficiency, is yet to be comprehensively studied in all the flow regimes. Here, the traditional third-order time-implicit Godunov DVM (GDVM) and the recently developed discrete unified gas-kinetic scheme (DUGKS) are analysed in finding steady-state solutions of the low-speed force-driven Poiseuille and lid-driven cavity flows. With the molecular collision and free streaming being treated simultaneously, the DUGKS preserves the second-order accuracy in the spatial and temporal discretizations in all flow regimes. Towards the hydrodynamic flow regime, not only is the DUGKS faster than the GDVM when using the same spatial mesh, but also requires less spatial resolution than that of the GDVM to achieve the same numerical accuracy. From the slip to free molecular flow regimes, however, the DUGKS is slower than the GDVM, due to the complicated flux evaluation and the restrictive time step which is smaller than the maximum effective time step of the GDVM. Therefore, the DUGKS is preferable for problems involving different flow regimes, particularly when the hydrodynamic flow regime is dominant. For highly rarefied gas flows, if the steady-state solution is mainly concerned, the implicit GDVM, which can boost the convergence significantly, is a better choice

Treatment of long-range interactions arising in the Enskog-Vlasov description of dense fluids

The kinetic theory of rarefied gases and numerical schemes based on the Boltzmann equation, have evolved to the cornerstone of non-equilibrium gas dynamics. However, their counterparts in the dense regime remain rather exotic for practical non-continuum scenarios. This problem is partly due to the fact that long-range interactions arising from the attractive tail of molecular potentials, lead to a computationally demanding Vlasov integral. This study focuses on numerical remedies for efficient stochastic particle simulations based on the Enskog–Vlasov kinetic equation. In particular, we devise a Poisson type elliptic equation which governs the underlying long-range interactions. The idea comes through fitting a Green function to the molecular potential, and hence deriving an elliptic equation for the associated fundamental solution. Through this transformation of the Vlasov integral, efficient Poisson type solvers can be readily employed in order to compute the mean field forces. Besides the technical aspects of different numerical schemes for treatment of the Vlasov integral, simulation results for evaporation of a liquid slab into the vacuum are presented. It is shown that the proposed formulation leads to accurate predictions with a reasonable computational cost