Computational Aerodynamics on unstructed meshes

New 2D and 3D unstructured-grid based flow solvers have been developed for simulating steady compressible flows for aerodynamic applications. The codes employ the full compressible Euler/Navier-Stokes equations. The Spalart-Al Imaras one equation turbulence model is used to model turbulence effects of flows. The spatial discretisation has been obtained using a cell-centred finite volume scheme on unstructured-grids, consisting of triangles in 2D and of tetrahedral and prismatic elements in 3D. The temporal discretisation has been obtained with an explicit multistage Runge-Kutta scheme. An "inflation" mesh generation technique is introduced to effectively reduce the difficulty in generating highly stretched 2D/3D viscous grids in regions near solid surfaces. The explicit flow method is accelerated by the use of a multigrid method with consideration of the high grid aspect ratio in viscous flow simulations. A solution mesh adaptation technique is incorporated to improve the overall accuracy of the 2D inviscid and viscous flow solutions. The 3D flow solvers are parallelised in a MIMD fashion aimed at a PC cluster system to reduce the computing time for aerodynamic applications. The numerical methods are first applied to several 2D inviscid flow cases, including subsonic flow in a bump channel, transonic flow around a NACA0012 airfoil and transonic flow around the RAE 2822 airfoil to validate the numerical algorithms. The rest of the 2D case studies concentrate on viscous flow simulations including laminar/turbulent flow over a flat plate, transonic turbulent flow over the RAE 2822 airfoil, and low speed turbulent flows in a turbine cascade with massive separations. The results are compared to experimental data to assess the accuracy of the method. The over resolved problem with mesh adaptation on viscous flow simulations is addressed with a two phase mesh reconstruction procedure. The solution convergence rate with the aspect ratio adaptive multigrid method and the direct connectivity based multigrid is assessed in several viscous turbulent flow simulations. Several 3D test cases are presented to validate the numerical algorithms for solving Euler/Navier-Stokes equations. Inviscid flow around the M6 wing airfoil is simulated on the tetrahedron based 3D flow solver with an upwind scheme and spatial second order finite volume method. The efficiency of the multigrid for inviscid flow simulations is examined. The efficiency of the parallelised 3D flow solver and the PC cluster system is assessed with simulations of the same case with different partitioning schemes. The present parallelised 3D flow solvers on the PC cluster system show satisfactory parallel computing performance. Turbulent flows over a flat plate are simulated with the tetrahedron based and prismatic based flow solver to validate the viscous term treatment. Next, simulation of turbulent flow over the M6 wing is carried out with the parallelised 3D flow solvers to demonstrate the overall accuracy of the algorithms and the efficiency of the multigrid method. The results show very good agreement with experimental data. A highly stretched and well-formed computational grid near the solid wall and wake regions is generated with the "inflation" method. The aspect ratio adaptive multigrid displayed a good acceleration rate. Finally, low speed flow around the NREL Phase 11 Wind turbine is simulated and the results are compared to the experimental data

Multigrid Strategies for Viscous Flow Solvers on Anisotropic Unstructured Meshes

Unstructured multigrid techniques for relieving the stiffness associated with high-Reynolds number viscous flow simulations on extremely stretched grids are investigated. One approach consists of employing a semi-coarsening or directional-coarsening technique, based on the directions of strong coupling within the mesh, in order to construct more optimal coarse grid levels. An alternate approach is developed which employs directional implicit smoothing with regular fully coarsened multigrid levels. The directional implicit smoothing is obtained by constructing implicit lines in the unstructured mesh based on the directions of strong coupling. Both approaches yield large increases in convergence rates over the traditional explicit full-coarsening multigrid algorithm. However, maximum benefits are achieved by combining the two approaches in a coupled manner into a single algorithm. An order of magnitude increase in convergence rate over the traditional explicit full-coarsening algorithm is demonstrated, and convergence rates for high-Reynolds number viscous flows which are independent of the grid aspect ratio are obtained. Further acceleration is provided by incorporating low-Mach-number preconditioning techniques, and a Newton-GMRES strategy which employs the multigrid scheme as a preconditioner. The compounding effects of these various techniques on speed of convergence is documented through several example test cases

Directional Agglomeration Multigrid Techniques for High Reynolds Number Viscous Flow Solvers

A preconditioned directional-implicit agglomeration algorithm is developed for solving two- and three-dimensional viscous flows on highly anisotropic unstructured meshes of mixed-element types. The multigrid smoother consists of a pre-conditioned point- or line-implicit solver which operates on lines constructed in the unstructured mesh using a weighted graph algorithm. Directional coarsening or agglomeration is achieved using a similar weighted graph algorithm. A tight coupling of the line construction and directional agglomeration algorithms enables the use of aggressive coarsening ratios in the multigrid algorithm, which in turn reduces the cost of a multigrid cycle. Convergence rates which are independent of the degree of grid stretching are demonstrated in both two and three dimensions. Further improvement of the three-dimensional convergence rates through a GMRES technique is also demonstrated

A cut-cell, agglomerated-multigrid accelerated, Cartesian mesh method for compressible and incompressible flow

This work details a multigrid-accelerated cut-cell Cartesian mesh methodology for the solution of a single partial differential equation set that describes incompressible as well as compressible flow. The latter includes sub-, trans- and supersonic flows. Cut-cell technology is developed which furnishes body-fitted meshes with an overlapping Cartesian mesh as starting point, and in a manner which is insensitive to surface definition inconsistencies. An edge-based vertex-centred finite volume method is employed for the purpose of spatial discretisation. Further, an alternative dual-mesh construction strategy is developed and the standard discretisation scheme suitably enhanced. Incompressibility is dealt with via a locally preconditioned artificial compressibility algorithm, and stabilisation is in all cases achieved with scalar-valued artificial dissipation. In transonic flows, shocks are captured via pressure switch-activated upwinding. The solution process is accelerated by the use of a full approximation scheme (FAS) multigrid method where coarse meshes are generated automatically via a volume agglomeration methodology. The developed modelling technology is validated by application to the solution of a number of benchmark problems. The standard discretisation as well as the alternative method are found to be equivalent in terms of both accuracy and computational cost. Finally, the multigrid implementation is shown to achieve decreases in CPU time of between a factor two to one order of magnitude. In the context of cut-cell Cartesian meshes, the above work has resulted in the following novel contributions: the development of an alternative vertex-centred discretisation method; the use of volume agglomerated multigrid solution technology and the use of a single equation set for both incompressible and compressible flows.Dissertation (MEng (Mechanical Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2007.Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineeringunrestricte

[Research activities in applied mathematics, fluid mechanics, and computer science]

This report summarizes research conducted at the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering in applied mathematics, fluid mechanics, and computer science during the period April 1, 1995 through September 30, 1995

Research in progress in applied mathematics, numerical analysis, fluid mechanics, and computer science

This report summarizes research conducted at the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering in applied mathematics, fluid mechanics, and computer science during the period October 1, 1993 through March 31, 1994. The major categories of the current ICASE research program are: (1) applied and numerical mathematics, including numerical analysis and algorithm development; (2) theoretical and computational research in fluid mechanics in selected areas of interest to LaRC, including acoustics and combustion; (3) experimental research in transition and turbulence and aerodynamics involving LaRC facilities and scientists; and (4) computer science

Implementation and Testing of Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes and Detached Eddy Simulation Using an Implicit Unstructured Multigrid Scheme

Investigation and development of the Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) technique for the computation of unsteady flows on unstructured grids are presented. The motivation of the research work is driven by the ultimate goal of predicting separated flows of aerodynamic importance, such as massive stall or flows over complex non-streamlined geometries. These cases, in which large regions of massively separated flow are present, represent a challenge for conventional Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) models, that in many cases, cannot produce solutions accurate enough and/or fast enough for industrial design and applications. A Detached Eddy Simulation model is implemented and its performance compared to the one equation Spalart-Allmaras Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence model. Validation cases using DES and URANS include decaying homogenous turbulence in a periodic domain, flow over a sphere and flow over a wing with a NACA 0012 profile, including massive stall regimes. Because of the inherent unsteadiness of turbulence, the first step towards computing separated flows is the development of an unsteady solution technique for unstructured meshes to be able to produce time accurate solutions. An implicit method for the computation of unsteady flows on unstructured grids was implemented based on an existing steady state multigrid unstructured mesh solver. The resulting non-linear system of equations is solved at each time step by using an agglomeration multigrid procedure. The method allows for arbitrarily large time steps and is efficient in terms of computational effort and storage. Validation of the time accurate URANS solver is performed for the well-known case of flow over a cylinder

Efficiency and scalability of a two-level Schwarz Algorithm for incompressible and compressible flows

International audienceThis paper studies the application of two-level Schwarz algorithms to several models of Computational Fluid Dynamics. The purpose is to build an algorithm suitable for elliptic and convective models. The sub-domain approximated solution relies on the incomplete lower-upper factorisation (ILU). The algebraic coupling between the coarse grid and the Schwarz preconditioner is discussed. The Deflation Method (DM) and the Balancing Domain Decomposition (BDD) Method are studied for introducing the coarse grid correction as a preconditioner. Standard coarse grids are built with the characteristic or indicator functions of the sub-domains. The building of a set of smooth basis functions (analogous to smoothed-aggregation methods) is considered. A first test problem is the Poisson problem with a discontinuous coefficient. The two options are compared for the standpoint of coarse-grid consistency and for the gain in scalability of the global Schwarz iteration. The advection-diffusion model is then considered as a second test problem. Extensions to compressible flows (together with incompressible flows for comparison) are then proposed. Parallel applications are presented and their performance measured

Algebraic multigrid for stabilized finite element discretizations of the Navier Stokes equation

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2002.Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-152).A multilevel method for the solution of systems of equations generated by stabilized Finite Element discretizations of the Euler and Navier Stokes equations on generalized unstructured grids is described. The method is based on an elemental agglomeration multigrid which produces a hierarchical sequence of coarse subspaces. Linear combinations of the basis functions from a given space form the next subspace and the use of the Galerkin Coarse Grid Approximation (GCA) within an Algebraic Multigrid (AMG) context properly defines the hierarchical sequence. The multigrid coarse spaces constructed by the elemental agglomeration algorithm are based on a semi-coarsening scheme designed to reduce grid anisotropy. The multigrid transfer operators are induced by the graph of the coarse space mesh and proper consideration is given to the boundary conditions for an accurate representation of the coarse space operators. A generalized line implicit relaxation scheme is also described where the lines are constructed to follow the direction of strongest coupling. The solution algorithm is motivated by the decomposition of the system characteristics into acoustic and convective modes. Analysis of the application of elemental agglomeration AMG (AMGe) to stabilized numerical schemes shows that a characteristic length based rescaling of the numerical stabilization is necessary for a consistent multigrid representation.by Tolulope Olawale Okusanya.Ph.D