Milan-Bob P .

Patadlas
ES 205 – Numerical Methods

A ghost-cell immersed boundary method for the simulations of heat transfer in

compressible flows under different boundary conditions
Part II: Complex geometries

Computational fluid dynamics have been very useful in present day application. The
governing equations of the CFD programs that we are using today are Navier-Stokes
equations. These equations include the fluid flow and heat transfer in the fluid, which we
know as the convective heat transfer. These simulations have a great impact to engineering.
From refrigeration, air condition, combustion to aerospace application, heat simulations are
used. Also in creation of plastic parts, which are used in our laptops, cellphones and other
basic things, used convective fluid to regulate the heat as the plastic is formed in the mold.

Most research now on CFD are inclined to producing accurate and efficient methods
for complex geometries and having several boundary conditions. An idea, which was
introduced by Peskin in 1972, of an immersed boundary(IB) method that he used to predict
blood flow in human heart even though how complex the geometry of the heart has been
the interest of many researchers. This method was further enhanced through time. Ghost
cell immersed boundary(GCIB) was also developed to further improved the fluid-solid
interaction that includes, high complex geometries and deforming objects.

Many research of the method above are focused more on incompressible fluids. For
air, mach number of less than 0.3 can be considered as incompressible, but above it will be
compressible. Thus, chemical reactions and like combustions, air speed travel greater than
0.3 mach number thus the method above will have a significant error in simulation.

Researchers from State key Laboratory of Clean Energy, Zhejiang University, China
and SINTEF Energy Research, Norway submitted an article “A ghost-cell immersed boundary
method for the simulations of heat transfer in compressible flows under different boundary
conditions Part-II: Complex Geometries”, published on International Journal of Heat and
Mass Transfer by Elsevier which extends the GCIB to compressible fluids.

In Ghost-cell immersed boundary method, nodes on the graph are to be identified as

whether it is fluid, solid or ghost from which a boundary line that separates the fluid from
solid and which it is the basis of the ghost cell since it is the mirror of the solid node that is
near from the boundary reflected to the fluid side. In calculating every grid properties, finite
difference is used. In the paper, 6th order derivative by Taylor series was proposed to be
used. When a ghost point is very near to a boundary, it may not have four fluid points
surrounding it, thus only the contribution of the fluids are considered.

The method was tested to simulate forced convection on square cylinder and semi-
cylinder. The result was compared with the previous literatures and was found very
accurate. It shows that the method used in the paper can handle complex geometries.
Validation was also done on NACA 0012 airfoil on a MACH = 0.5 speed in which there is also
a good agreement. The result also shows that as the Mach number increase from 0.3 to 0.5
the high temperature region also increases. This means that it will decrease the heat
transfer rate. It was describe as having a thicker thermal boundary layer with the increase of
Mach number.

The paper has shown accurate method in the prediction of the heat transfer in the
compressible fluid on complex geometry objects. Further study has still being research on
this area with the extension to more complex geometry and also other parameters that
affect the heat transfer when it is in Mach 0.3 and above.