Scalings of Inverse Energy Transfer and Energy Decay in 3-D Decaying Isotropic Turbulence with Non-rotating or Rotating Frame of Reference

Energy development of decaying isotropic turbulence in a 3-D periodic cube with non-rotating or rotating frames of reference is studied through direct numerical simulation using GPU accelerated lattice Boltzmann method. The initial turbulence is isotropic, generated in spectral space with prescribed energy spectrum E(κ)~κm in a range between κmin and κmax. The Taylor microscale Reynolds number Reλ and Rossby number Ro are introduced to characterize the inertial, viscous, and rotational attributes of the system. The focus of this study is on the scalings of early inverse energy transfer and late energy decay in the development of turbulent energy under various conditions through combinations of m, κmin, κmax, Reλ and Ro. First, we demonstrate the validity of the simulation by confirming the quantitative dependence of the decay exponent n on the initial energy spectrum exponent m, at Reλ =255 and Ro=∞, varying the values of m, κmin and κmax. Second, at relatively low Reλ, the decay exponent for different initial spectra statistically fall in respective ranges, all of which agree well with the corresponding analytical predictions. Third, we quantitatively investigate the 3-D inverse energy transfer. Our findings include (i) the exponent of inverse energy transfer spectrum E(κ)~κσ depends on the initial spectrum exponent E(κ) ~ κm: if m<4, σ=m while if m≥4, σ=4; (ii) rotation alters the inverse energy transfer rate when Reλ≤255 and Ro≥0.8; (iii) the energy increase in large scale during inverse energy transfer exhibits a bell shape, the peak of which varies with Reλ and Ro

A next-generation CFD tool for large-eddy simulations on the desktop

Dive deep into the fascinating world of real-time computational fluid dynam- ics. We present details of our GPU-accelerated flow solver for the simulation of non-linear violent flows in marine and coastal engineering. The solver, the efficient lattice boltzmann environment elbe, is accelerated with recent NVIDIA graphics hardware and allows for three-dimensional simulations of complex flows in or near real-time. Details of the very ef- ficient numerical back end, the pre- and postprocessing tools and the integrated OpenGL visualizer tool will be discussed. Moreover, several applications with marine relevance demonstrate that elbe can be considered as prototype for next-generation CFD tools for simulation-based design (SBD) and interactive flow field monitoring on commodity hardware

Scalings of Inverse Energy Transfer and Energy Decay in 3-D Decaying Isotropic Turbulence with Non-rotating or Rotating Frame of Reference

Energy development of decaying isotropic turbulence in a 3-D periodic cube with non-rotating or rotating frames of reference is studied through direct numerical simulation using GPU accelerated lattice Boltzmann method. The initial turbulence is isotropic, generated in spectral space with prescribed energy spectrum E(κ)~κm in a range between κmin and κmax. The Taylor microscale Reynolds number Reλ and Rossby number Ro are introduced to characterize the inertial, viscous, and rotational attributes of the system. The focus of this study is on the scalings of early inverse energy transfer and late energy decay in the development of turbulent energy under various conditions through combinations of m, κmin, κmax, Reλ and Ro. First, we demonstrate the validity of the simulation by confirming the quantitative dependence of the decay exponent n on the initial energy spectrum exponent m, at Reλ =255 and Ro=∞, varying the values of m, κmin and κmax. Second, at relatively low Reλ, the decay exponent for different initial spectra statistically fall in respective ranges, all of which agree well with the corresponding analytical predictions. Third, we quantitatively investigate the 3-D inverse energy transfer. Our findings include (i) the exponent of inverse energy transfer spectrum E(κ)~κσ depends on the initial spectrum exponent E(κ) ~ κm: if

Modeling of rock scour using coupled 3-D discrete element and lattice boltzmann methods

Scour of rock in unlined rock spillway channels is a critical issue facing many of the world’s dams. From a modeling point of view this poses a challenging and interesting problem that combines rock mechanics and hydraulics of turbulent flow. We analyze this interaction between the blocky rock mass and water by directly modeling the solid and fluid phases—the individual polyhedral blocks are modeled using the Discrete Element Method (DEM) while the water is modeled using the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM). The LBM mesh is entirely independent of the DEM discretization, making it possible to refine the LBM mesh such that transient and varied fluid pressures acting of the rock surface are directly modeled. This provides the capability to investigate the effect of water pressure inside the fractured rock mass, along potential sliding planes, and can be extended to rock falls and slides into standing bodies of water such as lakes and reservoirs. Herein we present preliminary results to demonstrate the capabilities of the methodology

Volumetric Lattice Boltzmann Method for Wall Stresses of Image-Based Pulsatile Flows

Image-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has become a new capability for determining wall stresses of pulsatile flows. However, a computational platform that directly connects image information to pulsatile wall stresses is lacking. Prevailing methods rely on manual crafting of a hodgepodge of multidisciplinary software packages, which is usually laborious and error-prone. We present a new computational platform, to compute wall stresses in image-based pulsatile flows using the volumetric lattice Boltzmann method (VLBM). The novelty includes: (1) a unique image processing to extract flow domain and local wall normality, (2) a seamless connection between image extraction and VLBM, (3) an en-route calculation of strain-rate tensor, and (4) GPU acceleration (not included here). We first generalize the streaming operation in the VLBM and then conduct application studies to demonstrate its reliability and applicability. A benchmark study is for laminar and turbulent pulsatile flows in an image-based pipe (Reynolds number: 10 to 5000). The computed pulsatile velocity and shear stress are in good agreements with Womersley\u27s analytical solutions for laminar pulsatile flows and concurrent laboratory measurements for turbulent pulsatile flows. An application study is to quantify the pulsatile hemodynamics in image-based human vertebral and carotid arteries including velocity vector, pressure, and wall-shear stress. The computed velocity vector fields are in reasonably well agreement with MRA (magnetic resonance angiography) measured ones. This computational platform is good for image-based CFD with medical applications and pore-scale porous media flows in various natural and engineering systems

Particle-resolved thermal lattice Boltzmann simulation using OpenACC on multi-GPUs

We utilize the Open Accelerator (OpenACC) approach for graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerated particle-resolved thermal lattice Boltzmann (LB) simulation. We adopt the momentum-exchange method to calculate fluid-particle interactions to preserve the simplicity of the LB method. To address load imbalance issues, we extend the indirect addressing method to collect fluid-particle link information at each timestep and store indices of fluid-particle link in a fixed index array. We simulate the sedimentation of 4,800 hot particles in cold fluids with a domain size of $4000^{2}$, and the simulation achieves 1750 million lattice updates per second (MLUPS) on a single GPU. Furthermore, we implement a hybrid OpenACC and message passing interface (MPI) approach for multi-GPU accelerated simulation. This approach incorporates four optimization strategies, including building domain lists, utilizing request-answer communication, overlapping communications with computations, and executing computation tasks concurrently. By reducing data communication between GPUs, hiding communication latency through overlapping computation, and increasing the utilization of GPU resources, we achieve improved performance, reaching 10846 MLUPS using 8 GPUs. Our results demonstrate that the OpenACC-based GPU acceleration is promising for particle-resolved thermal lattice Boltzmann simulation.Comment: 45 pages, 18 figure

Visual Simulation of Flow

We have adopted a numerical method from computational fluid dynamics, the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM), for real-time simulation and visualization of flow and amorphous phenomena, such as clouds, smoke, fire, haze, dust, radioactive plumes, and air-borne biological or chemical agents. Unlike other approaches, LBM discretizes the micro-physics of local interactions and can handle very complex boundary conditions, such as deep urban canyons, curved walls, indoors, and dynamic boundaries of moving objects. Due to its discrete nature, LBM lends itself to multi-resolution approaches, and its computational pattern, which is similar to cellular automata, is easily parallelizable. We have accelerated LBM on commodity graphics processing units (GPUs), achieving real-time or even accelerated real-time on a single GPU or on a GPU cluster. We have implemented a 3D urban navigation system and applied it in New York City with real-time live sensor data. In addition to a pivotal application in simulation of airborne contaminants in urban environments, this approach will enable the development of other superior prediction simulation capabilities, computer graphics and games, and a novel technology for computational science and engineering

Inertial Coupling Method for particles in an incompressible fluctuating fluid

We develop an inertial coupling method for modeling the dynamics of point-like 'blob' particles immersed in an incompressible fluid, generalizing previous work for compressible fluids. The coupling consistently includes excess (positive or negative) inertia of the particles relative to the displaced fluid, and accounts for thermal fluctuations in the fluid momentum equation. The coupling between the fluid and the blob is based on a no-slip constraint equating the particle velocity with the local average of the fluid velocity, and conserves momentum and energy. We demonstrate that the formulation obeys a fluctuation-dissipation balance, owing to the non-dissipative nature of the no-slip coupling. We develop a spatio-temporal discretization that preserves, as best as possible, these properties of the continuum formulation. In the spatial discretization, the local averaging and spreading operations are accomplished using compact kernels commonly used in immersed boundary methods. We find that the special properties of these kernels make the discrete blob a particle with surprisingly physically-consistent volume, mass, and hydrodynamic properties. We develop a second-order semi-implicit temporal integrator that maintains discrete fluctuation-dissipation balance, and is not limited in stability by viscosity. Furthermore, the temporal scheme requires only constant-coefficient Poisson and Helmholtz linear solvers, enabling a very efficient and simple FFT-based implementation on GPUs. We numerically investigate the performance of the method on several standard test problems...Comment: Contains a number of corrections and an additional Figure 7 (and associated discussion) relative to published versio

Transport in complex systems : a lattice Boltzmann approach

Celem niniejszej pracy jest zbadanie możliwości efektywnego modelowania procesów transportu w złożonych systemach z zakresu dynamiki płynów za pomocą metody siatkowej Boltzmanna (LBM). Złożoność systemu została potraktowana wieloaspektowo i konkretne układy, które poddano analizie pokrywały szeroki zakres zagadnień fizycznych, m.in. przepływy wielofazowe, hemodynamikę oraz turbulencje. We wszystkich przypadkach szczególna uwaga została zwrócona na aspekty numeryczne — dokładność używanych modeli, jak również szybkość z jaką pozwalają one uzyskać zadowalające rozwiązanie. W ramach pracy rozwinięty został pakiet oprogramowania Sailfish, będący otwarta implementacja metody siatkowej Boltzmanna na procesory kart graficznych (GPU). Po analizie szybkości jego działania, walidacji oraz omówieniu założeń projektowych, pakiet ten został użyty do symulacji trzech typów przepływów. Pierwszym z nich były przepływy typu Brethertona/Taylora w dwu- i trójwymiarowych geometriach, do symulacji których zastosowano model energii swobodnej. Analiza otrzymanych wyników pokazała dobra zgodność z danymi dostępnymi w literaturze, zarówno eksperymentalnymi, jak i otrzymanymi za pomocą innych metod numerycznych. Drugim badanym problemem były przepływy krwi w realistycznych geometriach tętnic dostarczających krew do ludzkiego mózgu. Wyniki symulacji zostały dokładnie porównane z rozwiązaniem otrzymanym metoda objętości skończonych z wykorzystaniem pakietu OpenFOAM, przyspieszonego komercyjna biblioteka pozwalająca na wykonywanie obliczeń na GPU. Otrzymano dobra zgodność między badanymi metodami oraz pokazano, że metoda siatkowa Boltzmanna pozwala na wykonywanie symulacji do ok. 20 razy szybciej. Trzecim przeanalizowanym zagadnieniem były turbulentne przepływy w prostych geometriach. Po zwalidowaniu wszystkich zaimplementowanych modeli relaksacji na przypadku wiru Kidy, zbadano przepływy w pustym kanale oraz w obecności przeszkód. Do symulacji wykorzystano zarówno siatki zapewniające pełną rozdzielczość aż do skal Kolmogorova, jak i siatki o mniejszej rozdzielczości. Również w tym kontekście pokazano dobrą zgodność wyników otrzymanych metodą siatkową Boltzmanna z wynikami innych symulacji oraz badaniami eksperymentalnymi. Pokazano również, że implementacja LBM w pakiecie Sailfish zapewnia większą stabilność obliczeń niż ta opisana w literaturze dla tych samych przepływów i modeli relaksacji