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Article
Publication date: 14 September 2018

Chao Wang, Jinju Sun and Zihao Cheng

The present study aims to develop a vortex method capable for solving the complex vortical flows past the moving/deforming bodies.

Abstract

Purpose

The present study aims to develop a vortex method capable for solving the complex vortical flows past the moving/deforming bodies.

Design/methodology/approach

To achieve such a goal, some innovative work is conducted on the basis of vortex-in-cell (VIC) method that uses the improved semi-Lagrangian scheme. The penalization technique is incorporated with the VIC, which makes the complex boundaries of moving/deforming bodies readily treated. Iterative algorithm is further proposed for the penalization and used to solve the Poisson equation, which enhances the vorticity solution accuracy at the body boundary.

Findings

The developed method is used to simulate some distinct flows of different boundaries and features: the impulsively started circular cylinder flow represents the one-way coupling; the falling circular cylinder flow and ellipse leaf flow both represent the two-way coupling of moving boundary; the fish-like body flow represents the two-way fluid-structure interaction of deforming boundary. The vortical physics of the above flows are well revealed, and the developed method is proven capable in dealing with the complex fluid-structure interaction problems.

Originality/value

The penalization technique is incorporated with the semi-Lagrangian VIC method, which makes the complex boundaries of moving/deforming bodies readily treated. An iterative algorithm is further proposed for the penalization and used to solve the Poisson equation, which enhances the vorticity solution accuracy at the body boundary. The complex vortical physics of the moving/deforming body flows are well revealed, and the propulsive mechanism of fish-like swimmer is well illustrated with the present method.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 28 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 August 2021

Mohamed Abdelhamid and Aleksander Czekanski

This is an attempt to better bridge the gap between the mathematical and the engineering/physical aspects of the topic. The authors trace the different sources of…

Abstract

Purpose

This is an attempt to better bridge the gap between the mathematical and the engineering/physical aspects of the topic. The authors trace the different sources of non-convexification in the context of topology optimization problems starting from domain discretization, passing through penalization for discreteness and effects of filtering methods, and end with a note on continuation methods.

Design/methodology/approach

Starting from the global optimum of the compliance minimization problem, the authors employ analytical tools to investigate how intermediate density penalization affects the convexity of the problem, the potential penalization-like effects of various filtering techniques, how continuation methods can be used to approach the global optimum and how the initial guess has some weight in determining the final optimum.

Findings

The non-convexification effects of the penalization of intermediate density elements simply overshadows any other type of non-convexification introduced into the problem, mainly due to its severity and locality. Continuation methods are strongly recommended to overcome the problem of local minima, albeit its step and convergence criteria are left to the user depending on the type of application.

Originality/value

In this article, the authors present a comprehensive treatment of the sources of non-convexity in density-based topology optimization problems, with a focus on linear elastic compliance minimization. The authors put special emphasis on the potential penalization-like effects of various filtering techniques through a detailed mathematical treatment.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 39 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 September 2019

Van Luc Nguyen, Tomohiro Degawa, Tomomi Uchiyama and Kotaro Takamure

The purpose of this study is to design numerical simulations of bubbly flow around a cylinder to better understand the characteristics of flow around a rigid obstacle.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to design numerical simulations of bubbly flow around a cylinder to better understand the characteristics of flow around a rigid obstacle.

Design/methodology/approach

The bubbly flow around a circular cylinder was numerically simulated using a semi-Lagrangian–Lagrangian method composed of a vortex-in-cell method for the liquid phase and a Lagrangian description of the gas phase. Additionally, a penalization method was applied to account for the cylinder inside the flow. The slip condition of the bubbles on the cylinder’s surface was enforced, and the outflow conditions were applied to the liquid flow at the far field.

Findings

The simulation clarified the characteristics of a bubbly flow around a circular cylinder. The bubbles were shown to move around and separate from both sides of the cylinder, because of entrainment by the liquid shear layers. Once the bubbly flow fully developed, the bubbles distributed into groups and were dispersed downstream of the cylinder. A three-dimensional vortex structure of various scales was also shown to form downstream, whereas a quasi-stable two-dimensional vortex structure was observed upstream. Overall, the proposed method captured the characteristics of a bubbly flow around a cylinder well.

Originality/value

A semi-Lagrangian–Lagrangian approach was applied to simulate a bubbly flow around a circular cylinder. The simulations provided the detail features of these flow phenomena.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 29 no. 12
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 31 December 2020

Rtimi Youness and Frederic Messine

The presented study aims to minimize the energy consumed by a Hall effect thruster (HET) under a constraint which makes it possible to generate a specified magnetic field in a…

Abstract

Purpose

The presented study aims to minimize the energy consumed by a Hall effect thruster (HET) under a constraint which makes it possible to generate a specified magnetic field in a target region of the thruster.

Design/methodology/approach

Herein topology optimization (TO) is used to reduce the energy consumption of an HET while keeping its performance unchanged. The design variables are the current densities in the coils and the distribution of materials in the polar pieces of the thruster. Intermediate values of material distribution are penalized using the solid isotropic material with penalization method to favor binary solutions. By means of the adjoint method, this paper provides the derivatives of the objective and constraint functions with respect to material distribution and current density variables.

Findings

The TO-based design methodology is developed and validated on a design example involving 2,051 variables. The approach shows its interest and its effectiveness of on a large scale two-criteria problem.

Research limitations/implications

In this paper, TO is presented as a tool that has allowed to explore new and innovative designs. However, although the design presented is original, its fabrication is not feasible. Despite this, the designs found give a good idea of the starting points for shape and parametric optimization tools.

Practical implications

Through the HET design problem, TO shows the ability to explore more original design possibilities of a complex magnetostatic design problem and to discover designs that make a HET more efficient with respect to several criteria at the same time.

Originality/value

A new way to reduce the energy consumption of a HET is presented. To achieve this, an adjoint-based TO method is developed and then implemented in a simple way. This approach shows that, for efficiency purposes, TO is a key tool for extending the state of the art of HET designs.

Details

COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering , vol. 40 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0332-1649

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 February 2019

Van Luc Nguyen, Tomohiro Degawa and Tomomi Uchiyama

This study aims to provide discussions of the numerical method and the bubbly flow characteristics of an annular bubble plume.

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to provide discussions of the numerical method and the bubbly flow characteristics of an annular bubble plume.

Design/methodology/approach

The bubbles, released from the annulus located at the bottom of the domain, rise owing to buoyant force. These released bubbles have diameters of 0.15–0.25 mm and satisfy the bubble flow rate of 4.1 mm3/s. The evolution of the three-dimensional annular bubble plume is numerically simulated using the semi-Lagrangian–Lagrangian (semi-LL) approach. The approach is composed of a vortex-in-cell method for the liquid phase and a Lagrangian description of the gas phase.

Findings

First, a new phenomenon of fluid dynamics was discovered. The bubbly flow enters a transition state with the meandering motion of the bubble plume after the early stable stage. A vortex structure in the form of vortex rings is formed because of the inhomogeneous bubble distribution and the fluid-surface effects. The vortex structure of the flow deforms as three-dimensionality appears in the flow before the flow fully develops. Second, the superior abilities of the semi-LL approach to analyze the vortex structure of the flow and supply physical details of bubble dynamics were demonstrated in this investigation.

Originality/value

The semi-LL approach is applied to the simulation of the gas–liquid two-phase flows.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 29 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 July 2019

Van Luc Nguyen, Tomohiro Degawa and Tomomi Uchiyama

This paper aims to provide discussions of a numerical method for bubbly flows and the interaction between a vortex ring and a bubble plume.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to provide discussions of a numerical method for bubbly flows and the interaction between a vortex ring and a bubble plume.

Design/methodology/approach

Small bubbles are released into quiescent water from a cylinder tip. They rise under the buoyant force, forming a plume. A vortex ring is launched vertically upward into the bubble plume. The interactions between the vortex ring and the bubble plume are numerically simulated using a semi-Lagrangian–Lagrangian approach composed of a vortex-in-cell method for the fluid phase and a Lagrangian description of the gas phase.

Findings

A vortex ring can transport the bubbles surrounding it over a distance significantly depending on the correlative initial position between the bubbles and the core center. The motion of some bubbles is nearly periodic and gradually extinguishes with time. These bubble trajectories are similar to two-dimensional-helix shapes. The vortex is fragmented into multiple regions with high values of Q, the second invariant of velocity gradient tensor, settling at these regional centers. The entrained bubbles excite a growth rate of the vortex ring's azimuthal instability with a formation of the second- and third-harmonic oscillations of modes of 16 and 24, respectively.

Originality/value

A semi-Lagrangian–Lagrangian approach is applied to simulate the interactions between a vortex ring and a bubble plume. The simulations provide the detail features of the interactions.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 29 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 September 2009

Behzad Ghadiri Dehkordi and Hamed Houri Jafari

The purpose of this paper is to outline more computational schemes which provide a low computational cost approach to analyze flow characteristics through tube bundles. Flow…

1110

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to outline more computational schemes which provide a low computational cost approach to analyze flow characteristics through tube bundles. Flow through tube bundles has been numerically simulated by means of an alternative approach so as to assess flow behavior and its characteristics.

Design/methodology/approach

A Cartesian‐staggered grid based finite‐volume solver has been implemented. Furthermore, the ghost‐cell method in conjunction with Great‐Source‐Term technique has been employed in order to directly enforce no‐slip condition on the tubes boundaries. Before giving a solution for flow field through tube bundles, the accuracy of the solver is validated by simulation of flow in the cavity and also over a single circular cylinder. The results are completely compatible with the experiments reported in the literature.

Findings

Eventually, the flow through two types of tube bundles in in‐line square and general staggered arrangements in Re = 100 are simulated and analyzed. For these tube bundles that are being studied, the maximum drag and lift coefficients and maximum gap velocities have been numerically obtained. The same simulations have been also performed for the cases where the tube bundles are confined by two lateral walls.

Practical implications

These configurations are frequently used in heat exchangers, steam boilers, nuclear reactors, and many mechanical structures.

Originality/value

The adapted method is firstly implemented to simulate flow through tube bundles and the analyzed simulations have not previously been presented by other researches.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 19 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 July 2014

Diego Esteves Campeão, Sebastian Miguel Giusti and Andre Antonio Novotny

– The purpose of this paper is to compare between two methods of volume control in the context of topological derivative-based structural optimization of Kirchhoff plates.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to compare between two methods of volume control in the context of topological derivative-based structural optimization of Kirchhoff plates.

Design/methodology/approach

The compliance topology optimization of Kirchhoff plates subjected to volume constraint is considered. In order to impose the volume constraint, two methods are presented. The first one is done by means of a linear penalization method. In this case, the penalty parameter is the coefficient of a linear term used to control the amount of material to be removed. The second approach is based on the Augmented Lagrangian method which has both, linear and quadratic terms. The coefficient of the quadratic part controls the Lagrange multiplier update of the linear part. The associated topological sensitivity is used to devise a structural design algorithm based on the topological derivative and a level-set domain representation method. Finally, some numerical experiments are presented allowing for a comparative analysis between the two methods of volume control from a qualitative point of view.

Findings

The linear penalization method does not provide direct control over the required volume fraction. In contrast, through the Augmented Lagrangian method it is possible to specify the final amount of material in the optimized structure.

Originality/value

A strictly simple topology design algorithm is devised and used in the context of compliance structural optimization of Kirchhoff plates under volume constraint. The proposed computational framework is quite general and can be applied in different engineering problems.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 31 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 October 2018

Satafa Sanogo and Frédéric Messine

In this work, the authors deal with topology optimization in electromagnetism using solid isotropic material with penalization (SIMP) method associated with a gradient-based…

Abstract

Purpose

In this work, the authors deal with topology optimization in electromagnetism using solid isotropic material with penalization (SIMP) method associated with a gradient-based algorithm. The purpose of this study is to propose and investigate the impact of new generalized material interpolation scheme (MIS) used in SIMP approaches.

Design/methodology/approach

The variable domains of this kind of electromagnetism design problem are decomposed into small squares which represent a material point (iron here) or void. A least square function where the magnetic field in a target zone has to be as close as possible to a fixed one is minimized. Then the binary optimization problem is relaxed to a continuous one. By using the adjoint variable method, the gradient is provided. By penalizing the objective function using MIS, gradient-based algorithms can then be directly applied to provide efficient solutions close to the binary ones.

Findings

In this work, new general MISs are proposed. It is shown on numerous numerical instances that the so-obtained design solutions are more precise to define the zones with or without materials.

Research limitations/implications

Only the linearity of the materials is addressed because the associated adjoint method needs this assumption. However, the new penalization approaches are not dependent directly on this assumption.

Originality/value

The new MISs are efficiently applied to design of a hall effect thruster (HET) magnetic circuits. Furthermore, these schemes are generic and can then be applied to other topology optimization applications in electromagnetism as well as and in mechanism.

Details

COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, vol. 37 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0332-1649

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 March 2019

Yunhui Yang, Libin Zhao, Dexuan Qi, Meijuan Shan and Jianyu Zhang

This paper aims to present a multiscale fuzzy optimization (FO) method to optimize both the density distribution and macrotopology of a uniform octet-truss lattice structure.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present a multiscale fuzzy optimization (FO) method to optimize both the density distribution and macrotopology of a uniform octet-truss lattice structure.

Design/methodology/approach

The design formulae for the strut radii are presented based on the effective mechanical properties obtained from the representative volume element. The proposed basic lattice material is applied in a normalization process to determine the material model with penalization. The solid isotropic material with penalization (SIMP) method is extended to solve the minimum compliance problem using the optimality criteria. The evolutionary deletion process is proposed to delete elements corresponding to thin-strut unit cells and to obtain the optimal macrotopology.

Findings

Both numerical cases indicate that the FO results significantly improved in structural performance compared with the results of the conventional SIMP. The deleting threshold controls the macrotopology of the graded-density lattice structures with negligible effects on the mechanical properties.

Originality/value

This paper presents one of the first multiscale optimization methods to optimize both the relative density and macrotopology of uniform octet-truss lattices. The material model and corresponding optimality criteria of octet-truss lattices are proposed and implemented in the optimization.

Details

Rapid Prototyping Journal, vol. 25 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2546

Keywords

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