Hydrodynamics of inelastic Maxwell models

An overview of recent results pertaining to the hydrodynamic description (both Newtonian and non-Newtonian) of granular gases described by the Boltzmann equation for inelastic Maxwell models is presented. The use of this mathematical model allows us to get exact results for different problems. First, the Navier--Stokes constitutive equations with explicit expressions for the corresponding transport coefficients are derived by applying the Chapman--Enskog method to inelastic gases. Second, the non-Newtonian rheological properties in the uniform shear flow (USF) are obtained in the steady state as well as in the transient unsteady regime. Next, an exact solution for a special class of Couette flows characterized by a uniform heat flux is worked out. This solution shares the same rheological properties as the USF and, additionally, two generalized transport coefficients associated with the heat flux vector can be identified. Finally, the problem of small spatial perturbations of the USF is analyzed with a Chapman--Enskog-like method and generalized (tensorial) transport coefficients are obtained.Comment: 40 pages, 10 figures; v2: final version published in a special issue devoted to "Granular hydrodynamics

Unified Gas-kinetic Wave-Particle Methods II: Multiscale Simulation on Unstructured Mesh

In this paper, we present a unified gas-kinetic wave-particle (UGKWP) method on unstructured mesh for multiscale simulation of continuum and rarefied flow. Inheriting from the multicale transport in the unified gas-kinetic scheme (UGKS), the integral solution of kinetic model equation is employed in the construction of UGKWP method to model the flow physics in the cell size and time step scales. A novel wave-particle adaptive formulation is introduced in the UGKWP method to describe the flow dynamics in each control volume. The local gas evolution is constructed through the dynamical interaction of the deterministic hydrodynamic wave and the stochastic kinetic particle. Within the resolution of cell size and time step, the decomposition, interaction, and evolution of the hydrodynamic wave and the kinetic particle depend on the ratio of the time step to the local particle collision time. In the rarefied flow regime, the flow physics is mainly recovered by the discrete particles and the UGKWP method performs as a stochastic particle method. In the continuum flow regime, the flow behavior is solely followed by macroscopic variable evolution and the UGKWP method becomes a gas-kinetic hydrodynamic flow solver for the viscous and heat-conducting Navier--Stokes solutions. In different flow regimes, many numerical test cases are computed to validate the UGKWP method on unstructured mesh. The UGKWP method can get the same UGKS solutions in all Knudsen regimes without the requirement of the time step and mesh size being less than than the particle collision time and mean free path. With an automatic wave-particle decomposition, the UGKWP method becomes very efficient. For example, at Mach number 30 and Knudsen number 0.1, in comparison with UGKS several-order-of-magnitude reductions in computational cost and memory requirement have been achieved by UGKWP

A Multiscale Kinetic-Fluid Solver with Dynamic Localization of Kinetic Effects

This paper collects the efforts done in our previous works [P. Degond, S. Jin, L. Mieussens, A Smooth Transition Between Kinetic and Hydrodynamic Equations, J. Comp. Phys., 209 (2005) 665--694.],[P.Degond, G. Dimarco, L. Mieussens, A Moving Interface Method for Dynamic Kinetic-fluid Coupling, J. Comp. Phys., Vol. 227, pp. 1176-1208, (2007).],[P. Degond, J.G. Liu, L. Mieussens, Macroscopic Fluid Model with Localized Kinetic Upscaling Effects, SIAM Multi. Model. Sim. 5(3), 940--979 (2006)] to build a robust multiscale kinetic-fluid solver. Our scope is to efficiently solve fluid dynamic problems which present non equilibrium localized regions that can move, merge, appear or disappear in time. The main ingredients of the present work are the followings ones: a fluid model is solved in the whole domain together with a localized kinetic upscaling term that corrects the fluid model wherever it is necessary; this multiscale description of the flow is obtained by using a micro-macro decomposition of the distribution function [P. Degond, J.G. Liu, L. Mieussens, Macroscopic Fluid Model with Localized Kinetic Upscaling Effects, SIAM Multi. Model. Sim. 5(3), 940--979 (2006)]; the dynamic transition between fluid and kinetic descriptions is obtained by using a time and space dependent transition function; to efficiently define the breakdown conditions of fluid models we propose a new criterion based on the distribution function itself. Several numerical examples are presented to validate the method and measure its computational efficiency.Comment: 34 page

Aging to non-Newtonian hydrodynamics in a granular gas

The evolution to the steady state of a granular gas subject to simple shear flow is analyzed by means of computer simulations. It is found that, regardless of its initial preparation, the system reaches (after a transient period lasting a few collisions per particle) a non-Newtonian (unsteady) hydrodynamic regime, even at strong dissipation and for states where the time scale associated with inelastic cooling is shorter than the one associated with the irreversible fluxes. Comparison with a simplified rheological model shows a good agreement.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures; v2: improved version to be published in EP

Fluid Simulations with Localized Boltzmann Upscaling by Direct Simulation Monte-Carlo

In the present work, we present a novel numerical algorithm to couple the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method (DSMC) for the solution of the Boltzmann equation with a finite volume like method for the solution of the Euler equations. Recently we presented in [14],[16],[17] different methodologies which permit to solve fluid dynamics problems with localized regions of departure from thermodynamical equilibrium. The methods rely on the introduction of buffer zones which realize a smooth transition between the kinetic and the fluid regions. In this paper we extend the idea of buffer zones and dynamic coupling to the case of the Monte Carlo methods. To facilitate the coupling and avoid the onset of spurious oscillations in the fluid regions which are consequences of the coupling with a stochastic numerical scheme, we use a new technique which permits to reduce the variance of the particle methods [11]. In addition, the use of this method permits to obtain estimations of the breakdowns of the fluid models less affected by fluctuations and consequently to reduce the kinetic regions and optimize the coupling. In the last part of the paper several numerical examples are presented to validate the method and measure its computational performances

Rheological properties for inelastic Maxwell mixtures under shear flow

The Boltzmann equation for inelastic Maxwell models is considered to determine the rheological properties in a granular binary mixture in the simple shear flow state. The transport coefficients (shear viscosity and viscometric functions) are {\em exactly} evaluated in terms of the coefficients of restitution, the (reduced) shear rate and the parameters of the mixture (particle masses, diameters and concentration). The results show that in general, for a given value of the coefficients of restitution, the above transport properties decrease with increasing shear rate

A Unified Gas-kinetic Scheme for Continuum and Rarefied Flows IV: full Boltzmann and Model Equations

Fluid dynamic equations are valid in their respective modeling scales. With a variation of the modeling scales, theoretically there should have a continuous spectrum of fluid dynamic equations. In order to study multiscale flow evolution efficiently, the dynamics in the computational fluid has to be changed with the scales. A direct modeling of flow physics with a changeable scale may become an appropriate approach. The unified gas-kinetic scheme (UGKS) is a direct modeling method in the mesh size scale, and its underlying flow physics depends on the resolution of the cell size relative to the particle mean free path. The cell size of UGKS is not limited by the particle mean free path. With the variation of the ratio between the numerical cell size and local particle mean free path, the UGKS recovers the flow dynamics from the particle transport and collision in the kinetic scale to the wave propagation in the hydrodynamic scale. The previous UGKS is mostly constructed from the evolution solution of kinetic model equations. This work is about the further development of the UGKS with the implementation of the full Boltzmann collision term in the region where it is needed. The central ingredient of the UGKS is the coupled treatment of particle transport and collision in the flux evaluation across a cell interface, where a continuous flow dynamics from kinetic to hydrodynamic scales is modeled. The newly developed UGKS has the asymptotic preserving (AP) property of recovering the NS solutions in the continuum flow regime, and the full Boltzmann solution in the rarefied regime. In the mostly unexplored transition regime, the UGKS itself provides a valuable tool for the flow study in this regime. The mathematical properties of the scheme, such as stability, accuracy, and the asymptotic preserving, will be analyzed in this paper as well

Navier-Stokes transport coefficients for driven inelastic Maxwell models

We calculate in this work the Navier-Stokes transport coefficients from the Boltzmann equation for $d$-dimensional inelastic Maxwell models. By granular gas we mean here a low density system of identical spheres that lose a fraction of their kinetic energy after collisions. In the present work, the granular gas is fluidized by the presence of a thermostat that aides the system to reach a steady state. The thermostat is composed by two terms: a random force and a drag force. The combined action of both forces, that act homogeneously on the granular gas, tries to mimic the interaction of the set of particles with a surrounding fluid. The Chapman-Enskog method is applied to solve the inelastic Boltzmann equation to first order in the deviations of the hydrodynamic fields from their values in the homogeneous steady state. Since the collisional cooling cannot be compensated locally for by the heat produced by the driving forces, the reference (zeroth-order) distribution function $f^{(0)}$ depends on time through its dependence on the granular temperature. To simplify the analysis and obtain explicit forms for the transport coefficients, the steady state conditions are considered. A comparison with previous results obtained for inelastic hard spheres is also carried out.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, to be published in J. Stat. Mec