Unstructured Grid Adaptation and Solver Technology for Turbulent Flows

Unstructured grid adaptation is a tool to control Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) discretization error. However, adaptive grid techniques have made limited impact on production analysis workflows where the control of discretization error is critical to obtaining reliable simulation results. Issues that prevent the use of adaptive grid methods are identified by applying unstructured grid adaptation methods to a series of benchmark cases. Once identified, these challenges to existing adaptive workflows can be addressed. Unstructured grid adaptation is evaluated for test cases described on the Turbulence Modeling Resource (TMR) web site, which documents uniform grid refinement of multiple schemes. The cases are turbulent flow over a Hemisphere Cylinder and an ONERA M6Wing. Adaptive grid force and moment trajectories are shown for three integrated grid adaptation processes with Mach interpolation control and output error based metrics. The integrated grid adaptation process with a finite element (FE) discretization produced results consistent with uniform grid refinement of fixed grids. The integrated grid adaptation processes with finite volume schemes were slower to converge to the reference solution than the FE method. Metric conformity is documented on grid/metric snapshots for five grid adaptation mechanics implementations. These tools produce anisotropic boundary conforming grids requested by the adaptation process

Verification of Unstructured Grid Adaptation Components

Adaptive unstructured grid techniques have made limited impact on production analysis workflows where the control of discretization error is critical to obtaining reliable simulation results. Recent progress has matured a number of independent implementations of flow solvers, error estimation methods, and anisotropic grid adaptation mechanics. Known differences and previously unknown differences in grid adaptation components and their integrated processes are identified here for study. Unstructured grid adaptation tools are verified using analytic functions and the Code Comparison Principle. Three analytic functions with different smoothness properties are adapted to show the impact of smoothness on implementation differences. A scalar advection-diffusion problem with an analytic solution that models a boundary layer is adapted to test individual grid adaptation components. Laminar flow over a delta wing and turbulent flow over an ONERA M6 wing are verified with multiple, independent grid adaptation procedures to show consistent convergence to fine-grid forces and a moment. The scalar problems illustrate known differences in a grid adaptation component implementation and a previously unknown interaction between components. The wing adaptation cases in the current study document a clear improvement to existing grid adaptation procedures. The stage is set for the infusion of verified grid adaptation into production fluid flow simulations

Verification of Unstructured Grid Adaptation Components

Adaptive unstructured grid techniques have made limited impact on production analysis workflows where the control of discretization error is critical to obtaining reliable simulation results. Recent progress has matured a number of independent implementations of flow solvers, error estimation methods, and anisotropic grid adaptation mechanics. Known differences and previously unknown differences in grid adaptation components and their integrated processes are identified here for study. Unstructured grid adaptation tools are verified using analytic functions and the Code Comparison Principle. Three analytic functions with different smoothness properties are adapted to show the impact of smoothness on implementation differences. A scalar advection-diffusion problem with an analytic solution that models a boundary layer is adapted to test individual grid adaptation components. The scalar problems illustrate known differences in a grid adaptation component implementation and a previously unknown interaction between components. Laminar flow over a delta wing is verified with multiple, independent grid adaptation procedures to show consistent convergence to fine-grid forces and pitching moment

Comparing Anisotropic Error Estimates for the Onera M6 Wing RANS Simulations

International audienceIn this paper, we compare several anisotropic adaptive strategies for RANS simulations : feature-based and goal-oriented approaches. If anisotropic mesh adaptation has proven its reliability for inviscid flows, additional challenges remain to be solved to have the full gain of adaptivity, including early asymptotic (spatial second) order convergence, early capturing of the scales of then physical phenomena, ... One of the key component in the adaptive process concerns the computation of the error estimate. We describe the standard multi-sacle L interpolation error estimate, also called features-based error estimate, and two goal-oriented error estimates : one based on viscosity solutions and a second approach designed for laminar flows. The study focuses on the (simple) Onera M6 wing where the low complexity of the geometry allows us to reach the asymptotic rate of convergence. To assess these results, a non-linear corrector is applied to the CFD solutions to provide point-wise error bounds on the given solution and quantities of interest

Unstructured Grid Adaptation and Solver Technology for Turbulent Flows

International audienceUnstructured grid adaptation is a tool to control Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) discretization error. However, adaptive grid techniques have made limited impact on production analysis workflows where the control of discretization error is critical to obtaining reliable simulation results. Issues that prevent the use of adaptive grid methods are identified by applying unstructured grid adaptation methods to a series of benchmark cases. Once identified, these challenges to existing adaptive workflows can be addressed. Unstructured grid adaptation is evaluated for test cases described on the Turbulence Modeling Resource (TMR) web site, which documents uniform grid refinement of multiple schemes. The cases are turbulent flow over a Hemisphere Cylinder and an ONERA M6 Wing. Adaptive grid force and moment trajectories are shown for three integrated grid adaptation processes with Mach interpolation control and output error based metrics. The integrated grid adaptation process with a finite element (FE) discretization produced results consistent with uniform grid refinement of fixed grids. The integrated grid adaptation processes with finite volume schemes were slower to converge to the reference solution than the FE method. Metric conformity is documented ongrid/metric snapshots for five grid adaptation mechanics implementations. These tools produce anisotropic boundary conforming grids requested by the adaptation process

Unstructured Grid Adaptation and Solver Technology for Turbulent Flows

International audienceUnstructured grid adaptation is a tool to control Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) discretization error. However, adaptive grid techniques have made limited impact on production analysis workflows where the control of discretization error is critical to obtaining reliable simulation results. Issues that prevent the use of adaptive grid methods are identified by applying unstructured grid adaptation methods to a series of benchmark cases. Once identified, these challenges to existing adaptive workflows can be addressed. Unstructured grid adaptation is evaluated for test cases described on the Turbulence Modeling Resource (TMR) web site, which documents uniform grid refinement of multiple schemes. The cases are turbulent flow over a Hemisphere Cylinder and an ONERA M6 Wing. Adaptive grid force and moment trajectories are shown for three integrated grid adaptation processes with Mach interpolation control and output error based metrics. The integrated grid adaptation process with a finite element (FE) discretization produced results consistent with uniform grid refinement of fixed grids. The integrated grid adaptation processes with finite volume schemes were slower to converge to the reference solution than the FE method. Metric conformity is documented ongrid/metric snapshots for five grid adaptation mechanics implementations. These tools produce anisotropic boundary conforming grids requested by the adaptation process

Verification of Anisotropic Mesh Adaptation for Turbulent Simulations over ONERA M6 Wing

International audienceUnstructured anisotropic mesh adaptation is known to be an efficient way to control discretization errors in computational fluid dynamics simulations. Method verification is required to provide the confidence for routine use in production analysis. The current work aims at verification of anisotropic mesh adaptation for Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulations over the ONERA M6 wing. The present verification study is performed using four different flow solvers, three different implementations of the metric field, and three mesh mechanics packages. Two of the flow solvers use stabilized finite element discretizations (FUN3D-SFE and general geometry Navier–Stokes), one uses finite volume discretization (FUN3D-FV), and the last one uses mixed finite volume and finite element discretizations (Wolf). The mesh adaptation is based on an error estimator that aims to control the quadratic error term in the linear interpolation of the Mach number. Two sets of adaptations were performed; the first one controls the interpolation error in the L2 norm, and the second one controls the interpolation error in the L4 norm. Convergence studies were performed on the forces and the pitching moment using all four solvers, and the results are compared with previously verified convergence studies on fixed (nonadapted) meshes. Both the forces and pitching moment on adapted meshes are found to be converging to the fine-mesh values faster than those on fixed meshes. In addition to forces and moments, the convergence of surface pressure and skin-friction coefficients at various measurement locations on the wing are also presented. Adapted-mesh surface pressure distributions agree with the fine fixed mesh pressure distributions. Adapted-mesh skin-friction distributions contain high-frequency noise with mean values approaching the fixed mesh pressure skin-friction distributions

Verification of Unstructured Grid Adaptation Components

Unstructured grid techniques have the potential of minimizing discretization errors for production analysis workflows where the control of errors is critical to obtaining reliable simulation results. Recent progress has matured a number of independent implementations of flow solvers, error estimation methods, and anisotropic grid adaptation mechanics. Here, the interoperability of several separately developed unstructured grid adaptation tools is verified using analytic functions and the Code Comparison Principle. Three analytic functions with different smoothness properties are adapted to show the impact of smoothness on implementation differences. A scalar advection-diffusion problem with an analytic solution that models a boundary layer is adapted to test individual grid adaptation components. While optimal asymptotic error convergence rates are achieved with many grid adaptation tool combinations for the scalar problems, the scalar problems also illustrate known differences in grid adaptation component implementations and a previously unknown interaction between components. Laminar flow over a delta wing is verified with multiple, independent grid adaptation procedures to show consistent convergence to fine-grid forces and pitching moment. These verification efforts form the nucleus of a benchmark to verify the integration of unstructured grad adaptation components and support production analysis workflows