CFD Methods

129 2006, von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, Rhode-St-Gense, Belgium
CFD METHODS
CFD activities are composed of two parts:
On the one hand there is the development
of advanced physical modeling capabilities,
including aerothermal and chemical model-
ing for high enthalpy flow, modeling of
transport properties of ionized plasmas,
modeling of two phase flow and modeling
of turbulence by LES. On the other hand,
the development of advanced numerical
techniques has continued, expanding
residual distribution methods and solution
adaptive hybrid grid generation tools.
A new solver for LES and DNS simulations
(SFELES) has been developed, as well
as an object oriented multiphysics software
platform (COOLFluiD) suitable for main-
taining and accommodating existing and
new software developments.
CFD Methods
TRANSPORT PROPERTIES AND
ALGORITHMS FOR PARTIALLY IONIZED
AND UNMAGNETIZED PLASMAS
The solution of the Boltzmann equation for dilute gas-
es neglecting the internal energy contribution is
known since the works of Chapman and Enskog. It al-
lows for the transport fluxes to be computed. On the
other hand, the description of mixtures composed of
species of disparate masses is not well-established.
Partially ionized plasmas, composed of electrons and
molecules, belong to this category. A new formalism
for the transport properties of partially ionized and un-
magnetized plasmas is derived by means of the kinetic
theory [AJ53] and investigated from a computational
point of view [AJ41].
The pros and cons of different models encountered in
the literature are presented. A dimensional analysis of
the Boltzmann equation deals with the disparity of
mass between electrons and heavy particles and
yields the epochal relaxation concept. Firstly, electrons
and heavy particles exhibit distinct kinetic time scales
and may have different translational temperatures.
The hydrodynamic velocity is supposed to be identi-
cal for both types of species. Secondly, at the hydro-
dynamic time scale the energy exchanged between
electrons and heavy particles tends to equalize both
temperatures. Global and species macroscopic fluid
conservation equations are given. New constrained
integral equations are derived from a modified
Chapman-Enskog perturbative method. Adequate
bracket integrals are introduced to treat thermal non-
equilibrium. A symmetric mathematical formalism is
preferred for physical and numerical standpoints.
Moreover, a Laguerre-Sonine polynomial expansion
supplies transport systems. Momentum, mass, and
energy fluxes are associated to shear viscosity, diffu-
sion coefficients, thermal diffusion coefficients, and
thermal conductivities. A Goldstein expansion of the
perturbation function provides explicit expressions of
the thermal diffusion ratios and measurable thermal
conductivities. Thermal diffusion terms already found
in the Russian literature ensure the exact mass con-
servation. A generalized Stefan-Maxwell equation is
derived following the method of Kolesnikov and
Tirskiy. A simple Eucken correction is proposed to deal
with the internal degrees of freedom of atoms and
polyatomic molecules, neglecting inelastic collisions.
Well-posedness of the transport properties is estab-
lished, providing that some conditions on the kinetic
data are met. Multicomponent transport coefficients
are expressed as the solution of linear systems whose
size is proportional to the number of species in the
mixture.
Evaluation of the multicomponent transport coeffi-
cients by direct inversion of these linear systems can
be computationally expensive when the number
species becomes large. A symmetric formalism allows
for the number of operations to be reduced by a fac-
tor of two. However, the computational effort remains
excessive for most fluid simulations. Approximate
mixture rules constitute an alternative to evaluate at
lower cost the multicomponent transport coefficients.
Unfortunately, these mixture rules are known to be in-
accurate in the dissociation and ionization ranges.
Recently, another solution was proposed by Ern and
Giovangigli who developed low-cost accurate algo-
rithms to provide the multicomponent transport prop-
erties mixtures composed of neutral species. In the
present work, these algorithms are adapted and ap-
plied to partially ionized and unmagnetized plasmas.
These algorithms rely either on a direct linear solver
or on convergent iterative Krylov projection methods,
such the conjugate gradient. The Stefan-Maxwell ma-
trix singular and a mass conservation constraint com-
plete the system of equations. A matrix still symmet-
ric, and nonsingular, including the mass constraint is
introduced for the direct method. A suitable projector
associated with the singular form of the Stefan-
Maxwell matrix is used for the iterative methods.
Figure 1: Shear viscosity of air: our results:
Capitelli and al.
_ Murphy
Figure 2: Relative error on shear viscosity of air
using approxi-
mate numerical
methods
CFD Methods
An 11-species air mixture in local thermodynamic
equilibrium at atmospheric pressure serves as a
benchmark to assess the physical model and numeri-
cal methods. The shear viscosity computed by a direct
method is displayed in Figure 1. Below the ionization
range, increases with temperature and presents some
modulations linked to changes of composition due to
molecular dissociation. Above 10000K, large ion-ion
cross- sections drastically decrease the shear viscosity.
Table 1: Computational cost of
CG 1.00
Direct 1.51
Gupta-Yos 1.03
Wilke 2.16
Superiority of the conjugate gradient method with re-
spect to the direct solver and approximate mixture
rules found in the literature is demonstrated in terms
of accuracy and computational cost in Figure 2. Wilkes
rule leads to a relative error of about 10% in the dis-
sociation range rising up to 70% in the ionization
range. Below 9000K, the Gupta-Yos formula is accu-
rate and one conjugate gradient iteration is sufficient-
ly precise. Above this temperature threshold, the
Gupta-Yos formula fails with a maximum relative er-
ror of 40%, whereas one conjugate gradient iteration
yields maximum 6% of error. Two conjugate gradient
(CG) iterations provide accurate results. The compu-
tational cost is summarized in Table 1. Wilkes rule for
the shear viscosity requires 3N-3 square roots to be
evaluated, where N is the number of species in the
mixture. The number of operations of the Gupta-Yos
formula scales as N
2
/2. The CG is the cheapest and
most accurate method.
COOLFLUID: AN OBJECT-ORIENTED
FRAMEWORK FOR MULTI-METHOD AND
MULTI-PHYSICS SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING
This research is a long term effort towards the devel-
opment of a next generation multi-physics and multi-
method solver, by constructing a software framework
where different numerical techniques and tools can
coexist and function together.
Nowadays the science of computational fluid dynam-
ics is reaching its mature state of development.
The need to incorporate more and more physics into
the simulation of fluid mechanics is increasing, to-
gether with the constant rise in available computer
power. More complex numerical methods are being
developed, that bring new levels of accuracy and
reliability to the computed solutions. It is only reason-
able that the software techniques used to implement
such methods and complex models should evolve as
well, so that the development process scales likewise.
Experience with the previous codes for scientific sim-
ulations at the VKI shows that, although very power-
ful, these academic codes have reached the limit of
complexity and scale that their architecture allows.
Some of the developments made by external partners
of the Institute on cooperative projects are not com-
patible with other developments; in addition, further
extensions to these existing codes tend to be time-
consuming and tedious.
Therefore, in the beginning of 2002, a project aiming
at the design and construction of a software frame-
work was initiated. This framework should work as a
platform for the collaborative development of tools for
scientific simulations within the departments of the
Institute and between the VKI and external project
partners. These tools are aimed at the simulation of
scientific problems that involve multi-physics, which
can be discretized through a variety of numerical
methods and solved on complex 3D geometries in
massive parallel simulations. Thus, the software from
the qualitative point of view should strive for modu-
larity, runtime and memory efficiency, implementation
scalability, ease of maintainability and endured
lifetime.
The current partners involved in this project are the
von Karman Institute, which is responsible for the
main contribution, two research groups at the Catholic
University of Leuven and the ETEC group at the Vrije
Universiteit Brussel. More partners are expected to
join as the COOLFluiD platform is involved in
European research projects (like ADIGMA).
The software architecture of this framework reflects
the need for a multi-partner collaborative environ-
ment: it is designed in a layered architecture, with a
central kernel which is responsible for the main inner
CFD Methods
workings of the framework and the handling of the
complex data structures, but which does not imple-
ment any functionality per se; the functionality is then
provided by a set of plug-in modules that can be de-
veloped separately by different partners, and which
are brought into collaboration by the kernel; and fi-
nally a myriad of multi-physics applications comes
into existence by the multiple combination of these
modules. This plug-in policy allows for external part-
ners to develop new functionality, which is easier to
integrate and thus creates powerful synergies from
which all of the project partners can profit.
As this framework serves as a development platform
for other VKI CFD projects, the current applications be-
ing developed within the project are linked to other re-
search projects already presented in this manuscript,
ranging from incompressible to compressible tran-
sonic fluid dynamics, hypersonic aerothermodynam-
ics, aeroelastic fluid-structure-interaction, magneto-
hydrodynamic space-weather prediction for the
European Space Agency, simulation of inductive cou-
pled plasmas to support the operation of the plasma
tunnel facilities at the VKI, and electro chemical plat-
ing and deposition within the MuTech project.
The solution of problems for industrial applications
usually involves complex geometries. To simplify their
treatment and speed-up of the design-mesh-simulate-
diagnose cycle of CFD, the framework supports auto-
matically generated unstructured meshes. This ex-
tends to hybrid structured/unstructured meshes, for
the improved solution of boundary layers of turbu-
lent flows. Work is in progress to support high order
ele-ments, thus allowing for higher accuracy on com-
pact stencils. This is all achieved within a lightweight
data structure, that enables dynamic mesh movement
and adaptation, driven from error estimation or fluid-
structure interaction. A large set of different numeri-
cal methods have already been implemented as plug-
in modules within the project. These are as diverse as:
time-stepping algorithms, for explicit and implicit
multi-order time discretization; arbitrary interfaces to
multiple linear system solvers like PETSc, Trilinos and
SAMGp; multiple mesh movement techniques, Hes-
sian based error estimation and conservative coupling
techniques for multi-physics problems.
One of the main features of the COOLFluiD platform, en-
abled by its flexible data structure, is that it allows the
coexistence in the same code
of different space discretiza-
tion techniques. The possibili-
ty to use the most appropriate
methods for each specific
problem broadens the spec-
trum of applications that
can be successfully
simulated using the
framework. Currently
there are modules for the
finite volume, finite element
and fluctuation splitting
method. This concept of coex-
istence of numerical methods
is called the multi-method
framework.
Another key feature of this software platform is its
ability to decouple the implementation of the numeri-
cal methods from the physical model description.
This allows for a the truly orthogonal existence of a
multi-method, multi-physics platform, where not only
the same simulation can be solved with different
methods for comparison, but also the more appropri-
ate methods can be selected for each class of physics,
and still interoperate, in a multi-physical application.
A concrete example would be the aeroelastic simula-
tion of a wing flutter, where the flow is modelled with
the finite volume method, the structure with high-
order finite element methods and the mesh move-
ment with a spring-analogy method.
One of the main difficulties for the development of
high performance computing software is the imple-
mentation of the parallel communication algorithms.
Efficiency is of paramount importance and the sup-
porting libraries have typically difficult interfaces and
are only well understood by software engineers.
Moreover, the parallel code is usually pervasive and
intertwines with the numerical algorithms, reducing
the comprehensibility and steepening the learning
curve. The COOLFluiD framework tackles this issue by
constructing a parallel layer of abstraction, which
hides the communication steps, thus releasing the
Figure 2: Comparison of the same simulation, a
Falcon at Mach 0.85, solved within COOLFluiD
with two distinct methods [FSM, FVM]
CFD Methods
developer of numerical algorithms from the task of
thinking in global terms of the simulation. In practice,
this means that one can often develop serial algo-
rithms, with little consideration of parallel issues. The
framework will automatically ensure that everything
runs concurrently on multiple processors. This ranges
from automatic partitioning of meshes, to parallel
input-output, to automatic syncing of data and com-
mu-nication of signals between CPUs.
To provide a shorter learning curve as well as easier
maintainability, the project has set its documentation
of the programming interface in-source. These are lat-
ter compiled into written documents which can be
used by partners to develop functionality that interop-
erates within the kernel. For improving the commu-
ni-cation within the project partners, a collaborative
website based on wiki technology has been set up,
and it also serves as the project webpage:
http://coolfluidsrv.vki.ac.be/coolfluid.
FINITE-ELEMENT SIMULATION
OF ELECTROCHEMICAL PROCESSES
IN COOLFLUID
This research is part of the IWT-SBO project MuTEch
("Novel Multiscale approach to Transport phenomena
in Electrochemical processes"), started in Januar 2005,
and which focuses on the numerical simulation of
electrochemical processes.
Within MuTEch, the VKI AR department collaborates
with a large number of Flemish academic and indus-
trial partners. The collaboration with the electro-tech-
nical group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) aims
at implementing electro-chemistry models in the object-
oriented multiphysics framework COOLFluiD, a large,
3D unstructured flow solver capable of running on
parallel supercomputers. The end re-
sult should be a tool,
sufficiently powerful to
accurately predict lo-
cal parameters of re-
alistic industrial elec-
trochemical systems.
El ect r ochemi cal
processes are gov-
erned by multi-com-
ponent mass, heat
and gas transport in
laminar and turbulent
flow regimes. The mass
transfer boundary layers are typically one or several
orders of magnitude smaller than thermal and hydro-
dynamic boundary layers. Other phenomena that fre-
quently occur are chemical reactions and temperature
or concentration-driven natural convection. As a result
of this complexity, quantitative knowledge of the cur-
rent densities, the ion concentrations and the gas frac-
tion distribution is very difficult to obtain.
Nevertheless, it is these local quantities that determine
the properties and quality of the final product, for ex-
ample, a common plating/etching of a metallic piece.
Contemporary understanding of electrochemistry only
allows the determination of these properties a poste-
riori and their correlation to the global process pa-
rameters of a reactor. Any deeper insight based upon
numerical simulations would therefore be a consider-
able improvement of the state-of-the-art. Since we ex-
pect that our numerical tools will not be able to cap-
ture the full complexity of electrochemical problems,
the MuTEch consortium has been subdivided into a
numerical and experimental group. On the one hand,
this will allow the validation of the developed numer-
ical models against experimental data. On the other
hand, where models are missing, empirical correla-
tions will be needed; these will probably require cali-
bration through experiments.
As a first step, we have implemented the simplest de-
scription of electrochemical deposition by diffusion
(plating) into COOLFluiD. If we assume that ionic
concentrations are more or less homogeneous, then
to determine electric current distributions inside a re-
actor, it suffices to solve a Laplacian problem with
nonlinear boundary conditions that represent chemi-
cal reactions on electrodes. We solve this problem by
means of the 3D finite-element discretization on an un-
structured mesh consisting of tetrahedral elements.
The use of unstructured meshes
and parallel computers allows
us to treat large geometries of
arbitrary complexity, rather
than simplified configura-
tions that are of academic in-
terest only. For instance, in
Figure 1 we show the current
density on an 8-wheel rack
submerged in an electrolyte
and subject to an electric po-
tential difference between the
wheel surfaces and the tank.
The current density can be
shown to be directly related to the
speed of deposition of material on the wheel
rack. This case was run in parallel on five proces-
sors, using a mesh containing 800000 nodes.
Figure 1: Wheel rack
in a plating process
CFD Methods
During the past year, particular attention has been giv-
en to the accuracy and efficiency of the implementa-
tion within COOLFluiD. This was done by comparing
solutions and code performance obtained with
COOLFluiD against the existing light-weight industri-
al software PlatingMaster. In Figure 2, we compare the
current density distributions predicted by COOLFluiD
and PlatingMaster for the plating of an oil pump.
Perfect agreement is found.
By comparing with PlatingMaster, we have also been
able to perform a thorough profiling and optimisation
of memory consumption and execution speed has
been performed. The parallel efficiency of COOLFluiD
has also been assessed and is found to be satisfactory.
The difficulty of generating coarse unstructured grids
around complex geometries makes it virtually impos-
sible to implement geometric multi-grid solvers to
speed up the calculations. A solution to this problem
is to use algebraic multi-grid (AMG) solvers, which
take the linear problem on the final fine mesh as an
input, generate a sequence of coarsened approxima-
tions to this linear problems in an automatic manner
and solve the linear problem using techniques analo-
gous to geometric multi-grid (smoothers, restriction
and prolongation operators).
Currently the SAMGp linear system solver, developed
by Fraunhofer SCAI (Institute for Algorithms and
Scientific Computing) group is being incorporated into
COOLFluiD. The SAMGp solver implements the AMG
solution method which is appropriate for current prac-
tical applications. SAMGp performs very well and pre-
liminary results show this advantage over currently
implemented linear solvers. The strongest expected
advantages, such as linear parallel scalability, are yet
to be asserted. Speed and memory overhead of
SAMGp will be compared with the characteristics of
conventional one-level solvers, such as CG precondi-
tioned by an ILU-type smoother.
Once all performance issues listed above will have
been addressed, we will start implementing the more
detailed MiTREM model (Multi-ion Transfer and
Reaction Electrochemical Model) and consider turbu-
lent flow effects as well as gas formation at electrodes.
IDEAL MHD SOLVER FOR SPACE WEATHER
APPLICATIONS IN COOLFLUID
This research is part of the ESA project PRODEX-8,
Solar Drivers of Space Weather II. In the course of
the project, the VKI AR department is responsible for
the development of an application code for the space
weather community (user friendliness, documenta-
tion, interfacing with grid generation ...). This is done
by means of writing an ideal MHD solver in
COOLFluiD, the object-oriented multi physics frame-
work under development at the VKI. Our aim is to com-
bine state-of-the-art upwind Finite Volume and
Residual Distribution numerical schemes, accompa-
nied by effective solenoidal constraint satisfying nu-
merical techniques, with new MHD physics studied at
the Center for Plasma Astrophysics (CPA) of the
Catholic University of Leuven: solar wind initiation, re-
sistive effects, earth magnetic field and other models.
The COOLFluiD framework will provide other essen-
tial building blocks, such as the capability to run in par-
allel, implicit time integration methods, solution adap-
tive grids, etc.
As solenoidal constraint satisfying numerical tech-
niques, two different approaches have already been
implemented and tested in the solver. One of them is
the well-known Powell's source term approach and
the other is the artifi-cial compressibility approach
(ACA) that has been developed as part of the research
that has been conducted during this academic year at
the VKI.
Powell's source term approach relies on a non-con-
servative form of the ideal MHD equations by means
of a source term whose elements cancel out the terms
proportional to the divergence of the magnetic field in
the original ideal MHD equations. Errors in the diver-
gence of the magnetic field are convected away by the
flow. This approach suffers mainly from two draw-
backs: (1) the stabilizing convection mechanism does
not work well in the regions of stagnant flow and (2)
non-conservative discretizations suffer from incorrect
shock capturing. Moreover, the solenoidal constraint
is satisfied up to only the accuracy of the truncation
error of the underlying base numerical scheme.
Figure 2: Plating process on a oilpump, results
from COOLFluiD (left) and PlatingMaster (right)
CFD Methods
The artificial compressibility approach (ACA) is a varia-
tion of the classical projection scheme in which the
gradient of a scalar potential field is added to the mag-
netic field at each iteration, in order to ensure that the
solenoidal constraint be satisfied up to machine ac-
curacy at each discrete time step. The disadvantage of
this classical ap-proach is that a costly Poisson prob-
lem is to be solved for the potential at each time step.
In ACA, the aforementioned Poisson problem is solved
by means of a pseudo-time stepping procedure for the
additional potential variable. The coupling between
the original ideal MHD equations and the additional
equation for the potential variable is made by means
of adding a diagonal tensor of the potential variable
to the induction equation. The modified system of nine
PDEs is now fully hyperbolic and conventional upwind
Finite Volume methods
can directly be applied
(e.g. Lax-Friedrichs
scheme, Roe's scheme).
It is proved both analyt-
ically and numerically
that the method is con-
sistent, which means
that the modified sys-
tem of PDEs converge
towards the correct so-
lution of the original
ideal MHD system
whether in the presence
of discontinuities or not
both at PDE and dis-
crete levels.
In testing so far, ACA
seems to be a remedy
for drawbacks of main
families of solenoidal constraint satisfying methods in
the literature. The main properties of the method can
be summarized as follows: (1) the modified system of
PDEs is purely hyperbolic (unlike classical projection
methods), (2) the method is stable and consistent and
works even in the vicinity of the regions of stagnant
flow, which can be proved by converting the induction
equation into a wave equation for divergence of mag-
netic field, which has eigenvalues that are independ-
ent from the flow speed (unlike Powell's source term
approach), (3) easy to implement (unlike staggered-
grid approaches such as Balsara's approach) (4)
the solenoidal constraint is satisfied up to machine
accuracy.
We have implemented and tested the ACA approach
within the finite-volume context, using scalar-dissipa-
tion as well as Roe-type flux functions. Second order
accuracy in space is achieved by using linear least
squares reconstruction together with Barth-
Jespersen's and Venka-takrishnan's limiters. Explicit
time integration is performed by means of forward Euler
and Runge-Kutta methods whereas implicit time inte-
gration is done using backward Euler time stepping.
In terms of convergence speed and robustness, ACA
has been found to be more robust, but for explicit time
integrations the convergence is markedly slower than
when using Powell's technique. When using an im-
plicit time integrator, on the other hand, the perform-
ance of ACA is at least as good as the performance of
Powell's method. We have tested the new scheme on
a wide variety of academic test cases, involving MHD
flows with strong magnetic fields, such as encoun-
tered in, for instance, fast solar Coronal Mass Ejections
(CMEs) and other phenomena in space plasmas.
Figure 1 presents results obtained for the situation
when a high speed MHD flow, with a strong magnet-
ic field aligned with the flow field, encounters a per-
fectly conducting cylinder. Computed density con-
tours are shown both for Powell's source term
approach and the AC approach. The underlying base
numerical scheme is a TVD scalar dissipation scheme.
As can be seen, for large magnetic fields, the obtained
shock structure can be completely different from what
would be obtained from a conventional compressible
flow without MHD effects.
We have also made considerable progress in imple-
menting the ACA approach using residual distribution
methods, which are finite-element related methods for
high-speed flows traditionally developed and studied
at the VKI. In Figure 2, we show axial momentum and
magnetic field contours obtained for a high-speed
MHD flow inside a curved magnetic flux tube.
Figure 1: High-speed magnetically dominated and field-aligned MHD flow that
encounters a perfectly conducting cylinder. Density contours computed using a
finite volume solver based on Powell's source term approach (a) and on the
artificial compressibility approach (b)
a) b)
CFD Methods
In the following months of the research in this field,
the finite volume and residual distribution solvers will
be further improved. At the same time, we will attempt
to simulate more realistic physical problems, studied
by the CPA, including challenging unsteady simula-
tions linked to space weather prediction.
HYBRID UNSTRUCTURED GRID
GENERATION FOR CONVECTION-
DOMINATED FLOW SIMULATIONS
Unstructured hybrid grid generation has been an im-
portant subject of research since 1998. A first mile-
stone was reached with the participation of VKI to the
European Union ESPRIT project AMeGOS (Automatic
Mesh Generation and Optimisation for industrial flow
Simulations), which reached its end in May, 2002.The
main task of VKI was the development of a grid gen-
erator suitable for convection dominated flow prob-
lems with very thin diffusion layers near the bound-
aries. The main application area's targeted in the
project were automotive industry (flow in combustion
engines), plating industry (electrochemically reacting
flows with mass transfer at the electrode boundaries)
and aerospace (high Reynolds number flows). A first
prototype grid generation package [AJ31] was com-
pleted in close collaboration with the software com-
pany ElSyCa, who was responsible for Graphical User
Interfacing (GUI), CAD interfacing, visualization and
interfacing with solvers. Other partners in the project
were AVL, PSA, and Volvo. Since 2002, the partnership
between VKI and Elsyca has been further extended
with the University of Brussels (VUB, department of
Computational Electrochemistry), and has now result-
ed in a grid generation package fully integrated with
the CAD package Solid Works.
The hybrid grid generation approach combines the
strengths of structured grid generators to produce
stretched anisotropic layers of elements near the
boundary with the capacities of unstructured grid
methods to cope with complex geometries. The pro-
cedure is hierarchic, beginning with the construction
of the edge grids which constitute the boundaries of
the faces. In a second step the face grids are gener-
ated starting from the bounding edge grids. Finally in
a third step the volume grids are generated starting
from the bounding face grids. Starting from the trian-
gular surface mesh, semi-structured layers of pris-
matic elements are created normal to the surface.
Figure 2: High-speed MHD flow inside a curved
magnetic flux tube computed using a residual
distribution solver based on the artificial
compressibility approach
Figure 1: Comparison of the sharp concave ridge
area with (left) and without (right) front folding
CFD Methods
When the prismatic elements become isotropic the
layer generation is stopped and the remaining domain
is filled with isotropic tetrahedra (eventually after the
creation of some intermediate prismatic elements).
The isotropic part of the volume grid (away from vis-
cous layers) is based on a Delaunay triangulation
method allowing to generate tetrahedra from a given
point cloud.
Figure 2: Views of volume hybrid grid at the trail-
ing edge (upper figure) and leading edge (lower
figure) for the ONERA M6 wing
After 2002, the research focused on improving quali-
ty of the grids and the efficiency and robustness of the
algorithms, especially for the boundary layer part of
the grid. This has lead to the completion of a PhD the-
sis in 2004 [TH16]. During this thesis a new method
has been developed for the generation of semi-struc-
tured layers in hybrid grids around convex and con-
cave ridges of the geometry. The method produces su-
perior grid quality and resolution in these areas
without modifying the underlined semi-structured
generation algorithm. An example of typical im-
provement is shown in Figure 1, comparing the stan-
dard approach with the new front folding algorithm.
The well-know ONERA M6 wing at transonic flow con-
ditions was chosen as a case to validate the grids gen-
erated by the proposed algorithms. Figure 2 presents
two views of the grid along the tip and root of the
wing. It also shows the hybrid surface grid generated
for this configuration, with semi-structured quadrilat-
erals generated starting from the round leading edge
and the sharp trailing edge of the wing (the quads
have been triangulated to accommodate the flow
solver which only supports tetrahedral elements). The
maximum aspect ratio of the triangles on the surface
is 20 in the area of the leading and trailing edge of the
wing. The wing surface has approximately 20000
points. The hybrid volume grid was created with
30 semi-structured layers. The final hybrid volume grid
has 683000 nodes and 4 x 10
6
tetrahedra. The front un-
folding algorithm was applied to the sharp trailing
edge of the wing to further improve the grid in that
area (shown in Figure 3).
In Figure 4, the pressure distribution is plotted at two
stations along the span of the wing. In the plots, the
results of the present computation (using the VKI Thor
solver) are compared with the experimental data and
a reference computation using the same solver on a
standard grid with the same number of mesh points
[MP53]. The comparisons show that in all cases the
present grid outperforms the one used in the refer-
ence in terms of pressure distribution. Notice also that
it does not exhibit the unphysical pressure jump at the
wing trailing edge, typical of RANS computations on
unstructured grids. This substantial (qualitative) im-
provement is due to the combination of the hybrid sur-
face grid close to the trailing edge with the front un-
folding (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Zoom at the trailing edge in the ONERA
M6 wing in the root area showing the two normals
produced by the front unfolding algorithm
CFD Methods
Figure 4: Pressure distribution for ONERA M6
wing at 65% (upper figure) and 90% (lower
figure) span location
ANISOTROPIC SOLUTION-ADAPTIVE
GRID ALGORITHMS FOR 3D
COMPRESSIBLE FLOW SIMULATION.
APPLICATION TO SPACE-WEATHER
Solution-adaptive grid adaptation is a powerful tool
for optimizing the efficiency of large scale calcula-
tions, such as the solution of the Euler and Navier-
Stokes equations for compressible flow. It allows a
dramatic reduction in the number of unknowns (which
is proportional to the number of meshpoints) for a
fixed accuracy of the simulation.
These applications typically have to deal with strong-
ly anisotropic phenomena like shocks and shear lay-
ers. Unfortunately for this kind of application the usu-
al isotropic mesh adaptation used for 3D flows results
in an excessive number of elements. The reason for
this is that during refinement of the grid around e.g.
the shock wave the grid cells become smaller
uniformly in all directions. However, if an anisotropic
adaptation is used, the grid is refined only in the di-
rection normal to the shock wave.
Therefore, the goal of this work was to develop ani-
sotropic mesh adaptation algorithms coupled with the
VKI-developed solvers for steady and unsteady flow.
An application of particular interest is the solution of
the equations of ideal magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD)
for simulating space weather, i.e. the interaction of the
solar wind with the earth's magnetic field.
Both the steady and unsteady anisotropic adaptation
algorithms considered in this work rely on remeshing
of the grid. A detailed description of the anisotropic
grid generation algorithms can be found in the PhD
thesis of A. Athanasiadis [TH16] and previously in this
survey. The remeshing is done in a Riemannian space
where the spacing of the cells is uniform. Then the fi-
nal spacing (after transforming back to physical space)
is a function of the metric field tensor used for the def-
inition of the Riemannian space.
For the construction of the metric tensor of the Rie-
mann space it is assumed that the solution error can
be estimated from the interpolation error, which is
proportional to the second derivatives of the solution.
Hence, the metric tensor is based on the evaluation of
the Hessian matrix of a tracer variable (e.g. Mach num-
ber or density), calculated from the solution on an ini-
tial (or previous mesh). Several approaches for
Hessian reconstruction have been verified in order to
choose the most robust and efficient one: Hessian re-
construction based on Green's formula or based on
least squares fitting on a stencil of neighbours.
Both steady and unsteady mesh adaptation has been
performed. To save computation time, the unsteady
adaptation is only made after a (fixed) number of time
steps of the CFD solver. Since it is not possible to pre-
dict in advance the motion of flow features (e.g. shock
waves), it could happen that the adapted grid is no
longer valid after a few time steps of the solver. In par-
ticular the shock wave leaving the refined area can
drastically deteriorate the quality of the solution. The
solution to this problem is to follow the flow features
in time on the previous grid, which is not yet adapted;
then the metric is calculated as an intersection of
many metric fields, obtained for snapshots of the so-
lution taken during the time interval between two grid
adaptations.
The numerical results that will be discussed below
have been obtained using a 2
nd
order Cell-Centered
FVM with WENO reconstruction. The calculation was
made using the COOLFluiD Finite Volume solver with
scalar dissipation.
CFD Methods
As a first test case, the steady MHD flow through
a planar 3D channel with sinusoidal bump is comput-
ed. The inlet is supersonic
and the wall is sup-
posed to be fully con-
ducting; it can be
shown that in such a
situation, a vanishing
normal magnetic field
needs to be imposed.
The initial grid and the
grid after the 3
rd
adapta-
tion step are shown on
Figure 1. The correspon-
ding fields of magni-
tude of magnetic induc-
tion vector are shown on
Figure 2. It is worth noting
that a drastic improve-
ment of the solution could
be obtained while the num-
ber of points was increased
by a factor less than 1.6.
The next test case is the 2D unsteady Euler flow ob-
tained by injecting a forward facing step in a uniform
flow channel with Mach number of 3.0. The solution of
this problem has been presented in numerous refer-
ences as a flow with complex unsteady shock waves.
The initial grid with uniform spacing h = 0.02 is pre-
sented on Figure 3. The adapta-
tion time step is equal to 0.02,
which means that 150 adapta-
tions were performed before
reaching global time t = 3.0. For
each time step, three levels of
adap-tations were done, grad-
ually increasing the number of
nodes. The grid for the final lev-
el of adaptation was created
setting the minimum cell size
to 0.0015. The number of nodes
on the finest grid for time t = 3.0
was equal to of 42000. A uni-
form grid with equivalent reso-
lution would contain ~ 13 x 10
6
nodes!
The grids used for calculations
for time t = 1.0 are presented on
Figure 4 and the corresponding density fields can be
seen on Figure 5. The final grid after the 3
rd
adaptation
step and its corresponding density field for time t = 3.0
can be seen on Figure 6. The improvement of the solu-
tion done by means of adaptation is clearly visible - the
shock waves are thin, the slip lines starting from triple
points have been recovered.
Figure 1: Grids used for computing a magneto-
hydrodynamic flow problem inside a curved, planar
flux-tube: initial grid (23000 nodes, upper); grid after
3
rd
adaptation loop (36000 nodes, lower)
Figure 2: Iso-contours of magnetic field intensity
in the mid-plane of the flux tube: computed
on the original grid (upper);
computed after 3 adaptation steps (lower)
CFD Methods
Figure 3: Initial grid with uniform spacing used for calculations without adaptation (7400 nodes)
Grid after third adaptation (22000 nodes)
Grid after first adaptation (8500 nodes)
Grid after second adaptation (10200 nodes)
Figure 4: Grid used to represent the solution at t = 1.0 time units
CFD Methods
Figure 5: Density fields obtained at t = 1.0 time units
Figure 6: Grids and density fields obtained at t = 3.0 time units and three adaptive refinements (42200 nodes)
Grid after first adaptation (8500 nodes)
Grid after second adaptation (10200 nodes)
Grid after third adaptation (22000 nodes)
CFD Methods
RESIDUAL DISTRIBUTION METHODS
FOR STEADY AND UNSTEADY HYPERBOLIC
CONSERVATION LAWS
The development of
Residual Distribution
(RD) methods for hyper-
bolic conservation laws
is one of the long term
research efforts at VKI.
In the last decade, the
RD method has been
shown to be an appeal-
ing alternative to finite
volume, finite element
and discontinuous
Galerkin methods on
unstructured meshes.
During the last years,
efforts have been made
to increase the accuracy
of the method. Instead
of discretizing in space
by means of P1 finite el-
ements, P2 (or P3) ele-
ments are used, yield-
ing a parabolic (or
cubic) approximation of
the solution. Following
the approach of Abgrall,
the element is subdivid-
ed in sub-elements. The
residual on each sub-
element is computed
and distributed to each node of the sub-element.
The work done on this topic during the last year has
been oriented towards three objectives. The first one
has been the extension of the method to the solution
of steady and unsteady viscous problems. This has
been done using a Petrov-Galerkin formulation,
equivalent to the RD Method in the case of a linear
pure advection problem [L33]. The issue was to keep
the accuracy constant for all Peclet numbers (repre-
senting the ratio between advection and diffusion). To
achieve this, it is necessary to blend the Petrov-
Galerkin formulation with the pure Galerkin method,
via a blending parameter dependent on the Peclet
number and hence on the flow regime. The method is
extended to the time-dependent case through a full
space-time formulation [AJ65] of the mathematical
problem, which is then discretized in a (d+1)-
dimensional space, where d is the number of space
dimensions and time is the additional one. On Figure
1, the unsteady rotation and diffusion of a cosine hill
is shown. Contour plots of the initial condition and of
the solution after one full rotation are displayed. The
results clearly show the effect of the (physical) diffu-
sion, however, the method preserves fairly well the
shape of the initial profile.
On Figure 2, we com-
pare the results ob-
tained with P1 and
P2 elements on the
same problem, but
without any viscosi-
ty. Clearly, the shape
is preserved better
by the higher order
discretization.
The second objective
has been the con-
struction of mono-
tone high order RD
schemes. The problem
is that such schemes
must be non-linear
(Godunov's theorem:
a monotone scheme
which is linear is at
most 1
st
order accu-
rate). To achieve this,
first a monotone linear
scheme is built. Then,
it is limited or blended
with a high order
scheme [LS33]. The lin-
ear monotone scheme
has been constructed
using a general formulation of the N scheme that has
been extended to P2 and P3 elements. The schemes that
we obtained in this way are not rigorously monotone,
but they behave as such. On Figure 3, we report the so-
lution of a steady problem with discontinuities, and
Figure 1 : Initial condition (left) and solution
of the viscous unsteady problem after one rotation (right)
Figure 2 : Solution after 3 full turns, obtained
using P1 elements (left) and P2 elements (right)
Figure 3: Result
obtained with
blending scheme
on a discontinuous
problem with a
source term
CFD Methods
with a discontinuous source term. The
solution has been obtained with a
blended scheme. We can see that
there are no oscillations around dis-
continuities.
Last, the third objective of the research
has been the application of high order
monotone RD schemes to complex
systems of conservation laws. Up to
now all applications only involve the
second order version of the schemes,
the higher order discretization still
being under development. As an ex-
ample, Figure 4 shows a Schlieren-
like visualization of the simulation of
the interaction of a shock with a bub-
ble of hot air. The simulation has
been run on an unstructured mesh
with a second order scheme.
Although the mesh used is not par-
ticularly fine, one can see the wavy
structure of the interface of the bub-
ble (middle pictures), giving a
glimpse of a flow instability. This is a
known to be a sign of the accuracy of
the discretization.
Similar results have been obtained
when simulating a similar problem
for a two-phase mixture. The details of
the model used can be found in
[AJ74]. In Figure 5, we report snapshots of the gas vol-
ume concentration obtained when a Mach 3 shock trav-
elling in an air-water mixture hits a bubble of almost
pure air (95% volume concentration).
Lastly, a thorough study of the application of RD
schemes to the simulation of shallow free surface
flows under the action of the gravity force has been
conducted [6]. First of all, many applications benefit
from the strong monotonicity-preserving character of
the developed schemes. As an example of such an
application, Figure 6 shows the formation of a water
wave due to the break of a dam separating two basins
of water. The difference in water height
between the two basins amounts to
5 meters.
Additionally, when applied to the
simulation of shallow-water flows,
RD schemes can be shown to have
the important property of preserving
exactly some physically very impor-
tant solutions [AJ87]. One such so-
lution is given by the well known lake
at rest state: whatever the shape of the bed of the riv-
er is, if there is no flow, the water on the top is per-
fectly flat. This is shown on Figure 7, where we report
the simulated interaction of a water wave due to an
initial perturbation with a hump in the bed of the riv-
er. In the figures, where non-dimensional quantities
are plotted, we see the shape of the bed (in grey) and
the water perturbation (in blue with coloured con-
tours) splitting in two halves, one of which interacts
with the non-flat bed. The lake-at-rest state ahead of
the perturbation is perfectly preserved. More such re-
sults can be found in [AJ87].
Figure 5: Two-phase shock bubble interaction. Contours of the gas
volume concentration at different times
Figure 6: Break of a dam. Water wave formation
Figure 4: Schlieren-like visualization of a numerical
shock-bubble interaction
CFD Methods
CFD ALGORITHMS FOR THE SIMULATION
OF BUBBLY TWO-PHASE FLOWS
Within the IWT project MuTEch (Novel Multiscale ap-
proach to Transport phenomena in Electrochemical
processes, IWT/SBO 040092), the VKI AR department
is responsible for the development of efficient CFD al-
gorithms for simulating electrochemical reactors. The
developed CFD methods should allow to predict local
parameters of complex electrochemical processes, in-
cluding gas bubble formation and transport under tur-
bulent flow conditions. This requires the development
of numerical solvers for dispersed turbulent two
phase flow, which should be coupled with software for
the simulation of electrochemical phenomena.
Presently, two different approaches to two-phase flow
modeling are used to simulate dispersed bubbly
flows. On the one hand an interface-resolving method
is used to track the bubble interface directly
(microscale approach), while a second approach fea-
tures Lagrangian tracking of bubbles inside a contin-
uous carrier flow (mesoscale approach).
In the microscale approach, the extended Finite
Element Method (XFEM) is used to perform direct nu-
merical simulations of bubble growth, lift-off and co-
alescence near electrodes. The main idea behind the
XFEM technique is to locally use (slope) discontinu-
ous elements near liquid/gas interfaces, in order to
capture, for instance, the pressure jump encountered
near a bubble interface.
The XFEM method is to be combined with level set
methods to track moving interfaces between different
phases. Level set methods have many advantages.
They work in an arbitrary number of space dimensions
and can cope with complicated changes in topology.
They therefore work even when velocity fields and/or
discontinuities are very complex.
The underlying principle of the level set method is to
add a scalar unknown to the system of governing
equations. The zero eigensurface of this contour coin-
cides with the gas/liquid interfaces. Away from inter-
faces, ideally this scalar field should correspond to the
signed distance to the nearest point on the interface.
Figure 1 shows an advective test case for a full period
of motion. The impressive capabilities of the level set
method used can be seen from the fact that the final
position of the interface coincides with the initial po-
sition, even though the calculation was made on a
very coarse mesh.
To speed up our level-set implementation, we exploit
the fact that only the position of the interfaces itself is
important; it is not necessary to know the level set
Figure 7: Interaction of a water wave with a non-
flat bed. Preservation of the lake-at-rest state
Figure 1: Advection of a circular interface
by means of a vortical flow field,
using the level set method.
CFD Methods
variable in the whole solution domain. We there-
fore compute the level set variable only in a nar-
row zone of elements close to interfaces
(the narrow band). We have developed
an efficient search algorithm to find the
closest point of the interface and use
it to regularly re-initialize the lev-
el set unknown inside the nar-
row band to the signed dis-
tance to the interface.
In the mesoscale
approach, a
solver using an
Eulerian-Lagrangian
two-phase flow model is
used to track dispersed bubbles in
a continuous flow field. In this tech-
nique, the flow field is computed in a single-
phase manner, by solving the regular
incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, while the
gas bubbles are tracked sequentially in a Lagrangian
manner, by solving their equations of motion. When
the two algorithms are coupled together, we obtain an
accurate simulation of bubbly two-phase flow.
Flow turbulence is one of the main challenges when
trying to simulate electrochemical reactors of indus-
trial interest. Reynolds-Averaged approaches often
fail, due to the complexity of the flow fields. We have
therefore chosen to use Direct Numerical Simulations
(DNS) instead. In DNS, one resolves all turbulent
length scales on a fine mesh. This is feasible only for
sufficiently low Reynolds numbers, which fortunately
happens to be the case in electrochemistry (typical
Reynolds numbers ~ 10000).
As a DNS solver, we have so far used the hybrid spec-
tral/finite-element code SFELES, developed together
with the Universit Libre de Bruxelles and Brigham
Young University. This solver is capable of performing
DNS in planar and axisymmetric geometries of other-
wise arbitrary complexity, with a very high efficiency.
To extend SFELES to dispersed two-phase flow, we
have developed the parallel Lagrangian particle/bub-
ble tracking library PlaS, which simulates the dis-
persed phase and couples it with the carrier phase
solver using standardized data-interfaces. To efficient-
ly fulfill this purpose, the Lagrangian solver also fea-
tures an MPI implementation to run on a distributed-
memory parallel computing platform.
In this additional module, dispersed entities such as
solid particles or gas bubbles are tracked sequential-
ly via their equations of motion. They are coupled with
the carrier flow by exchange of momentum in terms
of drag, lift, virtual
mass, pressure,
gravity and buoy-
ancy forces. We can
distinguish between cas-
es where the momentum
transfer from the bubbles to the
carrier fluid is neglected (one-way
coupling) or taken into account (two-
way coupling). For very dilute flows, a one-
way coupling approach is suitable. Back-cou-
pling effects should be taken into account when
sufficiently high concentrations of bubbles are pres-
ent. It is well known that this can significantly influ-
ence the turbulent flow structures. For even denser
flows, interactions between bubbles, such as hydro-
dynamic effects between nearby bubbles and bubble
collisions also have to be modeled.
The PlaS code is designed to model two-phase flows
with bubbles as well as particles. In the validation
phase of the solver, particulate flows were used, as
there are more reference results available from the lit-
erature for particulate than for bubbly flows. Figure 2
shows the particle accumulation around streamwise
vortices in the boundary layer of a turbulent channel
flow, seeded with tiny particles.
The development of the microscale and mesoscale
two phase flow solvers is still ongoing. For the mi-
croscale solver based upon XFEM and level set prin-
ciples, a working 2D prototype solver has been im-
plemented successfully. The next goals are (1) to
parallellize this 2D solver and (2) to extend the solver
to 3D. As far as the mesoscale solver is concerned, the
coupling between the DNS solver SFELES and the
Lagrangian tracking solver PlaS outlined above is al-
ready fully operational. A set of numerical test cases
(isotropic turbulence, channel flow, parallel-plate re-
actor) has been set up. First results for one-way as well
as two-way coupled dispersed two-phase flow have
been obtained and will be published as soon as pos-
sible. Further research may cover a variety of topics,
such as the development of a bubble-bubble collision
model, the development of a numerical model that
takes into account the effect of coalescence and break-
up of bubbles, and the study of turbulent wakes be-
hind bubbles of high bubble Reynolds number. We will
also couple the currently developed solver for two-
phase bubble flows with an electrochemical solver ca-
pable of simulating multi-ion mass transport.
Figure 2: Particle accumulation
around streamwise vortices
in the boundary layer
of a turbulent channel flow
CFD Methods
DIRECT AND LARGE EDDY SIMULATION
ON UNSTRUCTURED GRIDS
Over the past four decades, three main approaches
have been developed to numerically study turbulent
flows. The fastest, but least accurate approach, con-
sists in solving the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes
(RANS) equations. Turbulent fluctuations are averaged
out in time in order to obtain a pseudo-steady Navier-
Stokes formalism, in which additional Reynolds
stresses have to be modeled in order to represent tur-
bulent transport. The most rigorous and costly ap-
proach to turbulence consists in resolving all turbu-
lent length and time scales, by solving the unsteady
Navier-Stokes equations on a very fine mesh for many
small time steps. The total computational cost of such
Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) can be shown to
scale like the third power of the Reynolds number; for
this reason, only flows at low to moderate Reynolds
numbers can be treated. Large Eddy Simulations (LES)
can be seen as a compromise between RANS and
DNS. The larger turbulent structures are fully resolved
in space and time, whereas small-scale structures
smaller than the size of the grid cells are supposed to
be sufficiently random to be amenable to statistical
modeling.
Due to their high cost, DNS or LES of incompressible
turbulent flows are often restricted to academic con-
figurations with trivial boundary conditions, for which
the full power of pseudo-spectral methods can be har-
nessed: superior accuracy combined with high com-
putational speed and very low memory overhead. The
use of higher-order finite-difference methods on mul-
ti-block structured meshes allows to consideration of
more challenging flows. Nevertheless, geometries re-
main fairly simple; for instance, one could
study flows in cavities or around a cube.
Recently, turbulence researchers have start-
ed to explore the use of finite-element meth-
ods (FEMs) on unstructured meshes, which
in principle can handle entirely general
geometries. For instance, using FEMs, it
should be possible to perform LES around
car-shaped geometries for the automotive
industry.
Considerable work remains to be done before FEMs
will become accepted by the wider turbulence com-
munity. The feasibility of FEMs has not yet been suffi-
ciently demonstrated for the standard DNS and LES
test cases. Also, the dispersive and dissipative be-
havior of FEM schemes requires deeper investigation.
Last but not least, unlike for finite-differences, classi-
cal FEMS inherently require the solution of a large
sparse linear system at each time step; it is not obvi-
ous to do this in acceptable computation times.
Rather than to directly create an unstructured FEM
solver for flows over fully 3D geometries, it has been
chosen to first address these open problems using a
more lightweight hybrid spectral/FEM research code,
which allows the simulation of fully 3D flows around
planar or cylindrical geometries of otherwise arbitrary
complexity. The first prototype of the SFELES
(Spectral/Finite-Element Solver for LES) solver was
written at the VKI / Utah State University in 2002
[TH25]. Since then, the development of SFELES has
been continued by team of researchers at the VKI, the
Universit Libre de Bruxelles and Brigham Young
University (Utah). Modern software management
techniques have been an essential tool to make this
international collaboration a success; at present, about
ten researchers are contributing to SFELES on a reg-
ular basis.
The basic principle behind SFELES is illustrated in
Figure 1. The unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes
equations are discretized in 2D cross planes using (lin-
ear) triangular FEMs. The transverse (planar geome-
tries) or azimuthal (cylindrical geometries) direction is
represented by means of a truncated Fourier series,
which assumes periodicity in the z direction. Complex
two-dimensional geometries can be accommodated
through the unstructured in-plane mesh, while stor-
age requirements
are reduced be-
cause only a single
two-di mensi onal
mesh and associat-
ed overhead need
be stored.
To advance the solu-
tion in time, at each
new time step a fully
3D linear problem
needs to be solved.
From a computation-
al point of view, the
main advantage of
the hybrid spectral/FEM approach
is that this 3D linear problem decouples into a se-
ries of much more affordable 2D linear problems,
Figure 1: Typical hybrid spectral/FEM
mesh for incompressible circular cylin-
der flow, where linear FEMs are em-
ployed in two-dimensional cross planes,
while a truncated Fourier series is used
in the transverse direction. Shown are
isosurfaces of vorticity magnitude at
Reynolds number 8000 (DNS result)
CFD Methods
147
which can be solved using the fastest linear solvers
currently available. One 2D linear problem needs to
be solved for each mode in the truncated Fourier
series.
This approach has been implemented for use on dis-
tributed-memory parallel computers as follows: the
2D FEM mesh is partitioned in physical space. Each
processor then takes care of the calculations on a giv-
en mesh partition. To avoid the need for parallel linear
solvers, data belonging to the different Fourier modes
is gathered on individual processors before each lin-
ear solve. The linear systems are then solved sequen-
tially in Fourier space, after which the updated solu-
tion is scattered back to the mesh partitions in physical
space. This hybrid parallellization concept is illustrat-
ed in Figure 2. The main philosophy behind this par-
allellization is that all parallel communications are
now grouped in two large collective communication
steps. This approach is found to work very well on
modern LINUX clusters, which have large bandwidths
but tend to suffer from latency problems.
SFELES is currently used as the vehicle for applied and
fundamental research carried out by several scientists.
For instance, at the VKI, SFELES is used to simulate
turbulent bubbly two-phase flows and particle-laden
flows in electrochemical reactors. Also, SFELES is
used to develop new unsteady solution methods,
which are much faster and more robust than existing
methods for certain classes of problems (Figure 3).
Finally, SFELES is used as the test-bed for new
Algebraic MultiGrid (AMG) techniques. AMG methods
are state-of-the art linear solvers, which reduce all er-
ror frequencies simultaneously, by automatically gen-
erating a sequence of increasingly coarse approxima-
tions of the original fine grid linear problem. The gain
in performance when using AMG techniques, rather
than conventional linear solvers, is found to be im-
pressive both in terms of computational times and
memory usage. For instance, the SFELES team has
recently run a 50 million node DNS calculation on 100
nodes of the MaryLou supercomputer at Brigham
Young University [AJ88].
The main development efforts on SFELES for the near
future consist in replacing the stabilized finite-element
method currently used by a P1-iso-P2 method, which
does not require any artificial stabilization mecha-
nisms. This approach can be shown to have many de-
sirable properties for DNS/LES; for instance, it can be
shown to preserve the discrete kinetic energy for in-
viscid problems. Once this method will have been im-
plemented, we will consider variational multi-scale
methods and perform large LES calculations with the
code.
Figure 2: Illustration of the parallel
partitioning schemes employed in
SFELES (P0 through P3 represent
different processors).
(a) Physical space partitioning
used for calculation of the terms
in the matrix equation.
(b) Fourier space partitioning
used for the solution of the
linear systems, which allows
the use of multiple instances
of a serial linear solver
Figure 3: Instantaneous velocity magnitude and
streamlines obtained for the DNS of the incom-
pressible flow over a circular cylinder at a high
Reynolds number. Preliminary test result,
obtained using our new fast unsteady algorithm
on an extremely fine 2D mesh in a much shorter
time than possible using other existing algorithms
2006, von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, Rhode-St-Gense, Belgium
CFD Methods
SPACE-TIME LEAST-SQUARES
SPECTRAL ELEMENT METHODS
In the least-squares method one tries to find an ap-
proximate solution to a system of equations - algebraic
equations or partial differential equations - by mini-
mizing the residual in a certain norm. Once norm-
equivalence between the residual and an error is es-
tablished, convergence of the residual implies
convergence towards the exact solution. For many ap-
plications it is suitable to minimize the residual in the
L2-norm. Minimizing in the L2-norm leads to sym-
metric positive definite systems of linear equations for
which efficient solvers, such as the conjugate gradient
method, exist.
In order to apply the least-squares approach on an ar-
bitrary domain, a domain decomposition technique is
employed. Higher order polynomials are used to ap-
proach the exact solution within each sub-domain.
This approach allows for high order convergence
rates. When the underlying exact solution is suffi-
ciently smooth, polynomial enrichment, so called p-
type refinement, leads to exponential convergence.
In all other cases the convergence rate is algebraic and
depends on the order of the elements and the smooth-
ness of the underlying exact solution. The plot in
Figure 1 shows the convergence, both with grid re-
finement and polynomial enrichment, for a linear ad-
vection equation with a smooth initial condition. For
this example, a space-time formulation has been ap-
plied. Time is considered as an extra spatial variable
and the dimension of the grid is augmented by one.
The space-time formulation allows the use of higher-
order approximations both in space and in time.
In general, in spectral element methods the integrals,
which occur when calculating the components of the
element matrices, are numerically evaluated on the
same mesh as the mesh used to approximate the so-
lutions. When the underlying solution is sufficiently
smooth, the errors made using the Gauss-integration
are small and have hardly any influence on the final
solution or on the stability of the scheme. However,
when the least-squares spectral element method is ap-
plied to hyperbolic differential equations which allow
for discontinuities, the order of the Gauss-Lobatto in-
tegration has to be chosen with care. For some types
of linearization, a stable solution could only be found
by applying sufficiently high over-relaxation on each
iteration step. It has been observed that different lin-
earization types could lead to different solutions. By
augmenting the order of the numerical integration
these discrepancies can be overcome.
A conservative formulation has been developed to
solve systems of conservation laws. In this formula-
tion the flux is added as an extra variable. In order to
keep the number of degrees of freedom manageable
the flux degrees of freedom are partially eliminated at
the element level. This is done by executing a QR-
decomposition on the over-determined element
matrix.
Figure 1: Grid convergence study,
linear advection with smooth initial condition
Figure 2: Original LS-SEM (top) and LS-SEM solu-
tion after applying a post-process reconstruction
(bottom). The test case is a strong nonlinear
advection equation

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129 2006, von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, Rhode-St-Gense, Belgium

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