The LifeV library: engineering mathematics beyond the proof of concept

LifeV is a library for the finite element (FE) solution of partial differential equations in one, two, and three dimensions. It is written in C++ and designed to run on diverse parallel architectures, including cloud and high performance computing facilities. In spite of its academic research nature, meaning a library for the development and testing of new methods, one distinguishing feature of LifeV is its use on real world problems and it is intended to provide a tool for many engineering applications. It has been actually used in computational hemodynamics, including cardiac mechanics and fluid-structure interaction problems, in porous media, ice sheets dynamics for both forward and inverse problems. In this paper we give a short overview of the features of LifeV and its coding paradigms on simple problems. The main focus is on the parallel environment which is mainly driven by domain decomposition methods and based on external libraries such as MPI, the Trilinos project, HDF5 and ParMetis. Dedicated to the memory of Fausto Saleri.Comment: Review of the LifeV Finite Element librar

Numerical simulation of steady supersonic flow

A noniterative, implicit, space-marching, finite-difference algorithm was developed for the steady thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations in conservation-law form. The numerical algorithm is applicable to steady supersonic viscous flow over bodies of arbitrary shape. In addition, the same code can be used to compute supersonic inviscid flow or three-dimensional boundary layers. Computed results from two-dimensional and three-dimensional versions of the numerical algorithm are in good agreement with those obtained from more costly time-marching techniques

Pattern fluctuations in transitional plane Couette flow

In wide enough systems, plane Couette flow, the flow established between two parallel plates translating in opposite directions, displays alternatively turbulent and laminar oblique bands in a given range of Reynolds numbers R. We show that in periodic domains that contain a few bands, for given values of R and size, the orientation and the wavelength of this pattern can fluctuate in time. A procedure is defined to detect well-oriented episodes and to determine the statistics of their lifetimes. The latter turn out to be distributed according to exponentially decreasing laws. This statistics is interpreted in terms of an activated process described by a Langevin equation whose deterministic part is a standard Landau model for two interacting complex amplitudes whereas the noise arises from the turbulent background.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in Journal of statistical physic

Decoupling methods for the time-dependent Navier-Stokes-Darcy interface model

In this research, several decoupling methods are developed and analyzed for approximating the solution of time-dependent Navier-Stokes-Darcy (NS-Darcy) interface problems. This research on decoupling methods is motivated to efficiently solve the complex Stokes-Darcy or NS-Darcy type models, which arise from many interesting real world problems involved with or even dominated by the coupled porous media flow and free flow. We first discuss a semi-implicit, multi-step non-iterative domain decomposition (NIDDM) to solve a coupled unsteady NS-Darcy system with Beavers-Joseph-Saffman-Jones (BJSJ) interface condition and obtain optimal error estimates. Second, a parallel NIDDM is developed to solve unsteady NS-Darcy model with Beavers-Joseph (BJ) interface condition, which is much more complicated than BJSJ interface condition. We overcome the major difficulties in the analysis which arise from nonlinear terms and BJ interface condition. Furthermore, a Lagrange multiplier method is proposed under the framework of the domain decomposition method to overcome the difficulty of non-unique solutions arising from the defective boundary condition. Meanwhile, we propose and analyze an efficient ensemble algorithm, which can significantly improve the computational efficiency, for fast computation of multiple realizations of the stochastic Stokes-Darcy model with a random hydraulic conductivity tensor. Furthermore, we utilize the idea of artificial compressibility, which decouples the velocity and pressure, to construct the decoupled ensemble algorithm to improve computational efficiency further. We prove that the proposed ensemble methods offer long time stability and optimal error estimates under a time-step condition and two parameter conditions --Abstract, page iii

Computational methods in cardiovascular mechanics

The introduction of computational models in cardiovascular sciences has been progressively bringing new and unique tools for the investigation of the physiopathology. Together with the dramatic improvement of imaging and measuring devices on one side, and of computational architectures on the other one, mathematical and numerical models have provided a new, clearly noninvasive, approach for understanding not only basic mechanisms but also patient-specific conditions, and for supporting the design and the development of new therapeutic options. The terminology in silico is, nowadays, commonly accepted for indicating this new source of knowledge added to traditional in vitro and in vivo investigations. The advantages of in silico methodologies are basically the low cost in terms of infrastructures and facilities, the reduced invasiveness and, in general, the intrinsic predictive capabilities based on the use of mathematical models. The disadvantages are generally identified in the distance between the real cases and their virtual counterpart required by the conceptual modeling that can be detrimental for the reliability of numerical simulations.Comment: 54 pages, Book Chapte