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Article
Publication date: 24 November 2021

Mingyang Liu, Guangjun Gao, Huifen Zhu and Chen Jiang

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of solving turbulent flows based on smoothed finite element method (S-FEM). Then, the differences between S-FEM and…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of solving turbulent flows based on smoothed finite element method (S-FEM). Then, the differences between S-FEM and finite element method (FEM) in dealing with turbulent flows are compared.

Design/methodology/approach

The stabilization scheme, the streamline-upwind/Petrov-Galerkin stabilization is coupled with stabilized pressure gradient projection in the fractional step framework. The Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with standard k-epsilon model are selected to solve turbulent flows based on S-FEM and FEM. Standard wall functions are applied to predict boundary layer profiles.

Findings

This paper explores a completely new application of S-FEM on turbulent flows. The adopted stabilization scheme presents a good performance on stabilizing the flows, especially for very high Reynolds numbers flows. An advantage of S-FEM is found in applying wall functions comparing with FEM. The differences between S-FEM and FEM have been investigated.

Research limitations/implications

The research in this work is limited to the two-dimensional incompressible turbulent flow.

Practical implications

The verification and validation of a new combination are conducted by several numerical examples. The new combination could be used to deal with more complicated turbulent flows.

Social implications

The applications of the new combination to study basic and complex turbulent flow are also presented, which demonstrates its potential to solve more turbulent flows in nature and engineering.

Originality/value

This work carries out a great extension of S-FEM in simulations of fluid dynamics. The new combination is verified to be very effective in handling turbulent flows. The performances of S-FEM and FEM on turbulent flows were analyzed by several numerical examples. Superior results were found compared with existing results and experiments. Meanwhile, S-FEM has an advantage of accuracy in predicting boundary layer profile.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 32 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 May 2009

Herbert De Gersem

The purpose of this paper is to offer a fast and reliable discretisation scheme for computing the electromagnetic fields inside a ferromagnetic cylinder, accounting for motional…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to offer a fast and reliable discretisation scheme for computing the electromagnetic fields inside a ferromagnetic cylinder, accounting for motional eddy currents under high velocities and accounting for the severe ferromagnetic saturation of the rotor surface.

Design/methodology/approach

A nonlinear spectral‐element (SE) formulation is developed and compared to existing analytical and finite‐element approaches.

Findings

The proposed SE method results in a higher accuracy, allows for smaller models, avoids upwinding and needs less computation time. Disadvantages are the dense system matrix and the bad condition number.

Research limitations/implications

The SE approach is only developed and tested for 2D models with a single cylindrical domain.

Practical implications

The results of the paper may improve the design and optimisation of solid‐rotor induction machines and magnetic bearings.

Originality/value

The paper offers an appropriate solution for a computational problem, which already has been encountered by a large community of researchers and engineers dealing with high‐speed rotating devices.

Details

COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, vol. 28 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0332-1649

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 September 2019

Kangxin Chen and Houfa Shen

The purpose of this paper is to simulate two macrosegregation benchmarks with a newly developed stabilized finite element algorithm based on a semi-implicit pressure correction…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to simulate two macrosegregation benchmarks with a newly developed stabilized finite element algorithm based on a semi-implicit pressure correction scheme.

Design/methodology/approach

A streamline-upwind/Petrov–Galerkin (SUPG) stabilized finite element algorithm is developed for the coupled conservation equations of mass, momentum, energy and species. A semi-implicit pressure correction method combined with SUPG stabilization technique is proposed to solve the convection flow during solidification. An analytically derived enthalpy method is adopted to solve the energy conservation equation. The nonlinearities of the energy and species equations are tackled by Newton–Raphson method. Two macrosegregation benchmarks considering the solidification of an Al-4.5 per cent Cu alloy and a Sn-10 per cent Pb alloy are simulated.

Findings

A very good agreement is achieved by comparison with the classical finite volume method and a novel meshless method for the Al-4.5 per cent Cu alloy solidification benchmark. Moreover, a unique reference numerical solution has been obtained. Besides, it is demonstrated that the stabilized finite element algorithm can capture the flow instability and channel segregation during solidification of the Sn-10 per cent Pb alloy.

Originality/value

A semi-implicit pressure correction method combined with SUPG stabilization technique is adopted to develop robust stabilized finite element algorithm for the macrosegregation model. A new enthalpy formulation for heat transfer problems with phase change is derived analytically.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 January 2017

Seyi F. Olatoyinbo, Sarma L. Rani and Abdelkader Frendi

The purpose of this study is to investigate the accuracy and applicability of the Flowfield Dependent Variation (FDV) method for large-eddy simulations (LES) of decaying isotropic…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the accuracy and applicability of the Flowfield Dependent Variation (FDV) method for large-eddy simulations (LES) of decaying isotropic turbulence.

Design/methodology/approach

In an earlier paper, the FDV method was successfully demonstrated for simulations of laminar flows with speeds varying from low subsonic to high supersonic Mach numbers. In the current study, the FDV method, implemented in a finite element framework, is used to perform LESs of decaying isotropic turbulence. The FDV method is fundamentally derived from the Lax–Wendroff Scheme (LWS) by replacing the explicit time derivatives in LWS with a weighted combination of explicit and implicit time derivatives. The increased implicitness and the inherent numerical dissipation of FDV contribute to the scheme’s numerical stability and monotonicity. Understanding the role of numerical dissipation that is inherent to the FDV method is essential for the maturation of FDV into a robust scheme for LES of turbulent flows. Accordingly, three types of LES of decaying isotropic turbulence were performed. The first two types of LES utilized explicit subgrid scale (SGS) models, namely, the constant-coefficient Smagorinsky and dynamic Smagorinsky models. In the third, no explicit SGS model was employed; instead, the numerical dissipation inherent to FDV was used to emulate the role played by explicit SGS models. Such an approach is commonly known as Implicit LES (ILES). A new formulation was also developed for quantifying the FDV numerical viscosity that principally arises from the convective terms of the filtered Navier–Stokes equations.

Findings

The temporal variation of the turbulent kinetic energy and enstrophy and the energy spectra are presented and analyzed. At all grid resolutions, the temporal profiles of kinetic energy showed good agreement with t(−1.43) theoretical scaling in the fully developed turbulent flow regime, where t represents time. The energy spectra also showed reasonable agreement with the Kolmogorov’s k(−5/3) power law in the inertial subrange, with the spectra moving closer to the Kolmogorov scaling at higher-grid resolutions. The intrinsic numerical viscosity and the dissipation rate of the FDV scheme are quantified, both in physical and spectral spaces, and compared with those of the two SGS LES runs. Furthermore, at a finite number of flow realizations, the numerical viscosities of FDV and of the Streamline Upwind/Petrov–Galerkin (SUPG) finite element method are compared. In the initial stages of turbulence development, all three LES cases have similar viscosities. But, once the turbulence is fully developed, implicit LES is less dissipative compared to the two SGS LES runs. It was also observed that the SUPG method is significantly more dissipative than the three LES approaches.

Research limitations/implications

Just as any computational method, the limitations are based on the available computational resources.

Practical implications

Solving problems involving turbulent flows is by far the biggest challenge facing engineers and scientists in the twenty-first century, this is the road that the authors have embarked upon in this paper and the road ahead of is very long.

Social implications

Understanding turbulence is a very lofty goal and a challenging one as well; however, if the authors succeed, the rewards are limitless.

Originality/value

The derivation of an explicit expression for the numerical viscosity tensor of FDV is an important contribution of this study, and is a crucial step forward in elucidating the fundamental properties of the FDV method. The comparison of viscosities for the three LES cases and the SUPG method has important implications for the application of ILES approach for turbulent flow simulations.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 27 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 December 2005

Alessandro Corsini, Franco Rispoli and Andrea Santoriello

An original finite element scheme for advection‐diffusion‐reaction problems is presented. The new method, called spotted Petrov‐Galerkin (SPG), is a quadratic Petrov‐Galerkin (PG…

Abstract

Purpose

An original finite element scheme for advection‐diffusion‐reaction problems is presented. The new method, called spotted Petrov‐Galerkin (SPG), is a quadratic Petrov‐Galerkin (PG) formulation developed for the solution of equations where either reaction (associated to zero‐order derivatives of the unknown) and/or advection (proportional to first‐order derivatives) dominates on diffusion (associated to second‐order derivatives). The addressed issues are turbulence and advective‐reactive features in modelling turbomachinery flows.

Design/methodology/approach

The present work addresses the definition of a new PG stabilization scheme for the reactive flow limit, formulated on a quadratic finite element space of approximation. We advocate the use of a higher order stabilized formulation that guarantees the best compromise between solution stability and accuracy. The formulation is first presented for linear scalar one‐dimensional advective‐diffusive‐reactive problems and then extended to quadrangular Q2 elements.

Findings

The proposed advective‐diffusive‐reactive PG formulation improves the solution accuracy with respect to a standard streamline driven stabilization schemes, e.g. the streamline upwind or Galerkin, in that it properly accounts for the boundary layer region flow phenomena in presence of non‐equilibrium effects.

Research limitations/implications

The numerical method here proposed has been designed for second‐order quadrangular finite‐elements. In particular, the Reynolds‐Averaged Navier‐Stokes equations with a non‐linear turbulence closure have been modelled using the stable mixed element pair Q2‐Q1.

Originality/value

This paper investigated the predicting capabilities of a finite element method stabilized formulation developed for the purpose of solving advection‐reaction‐diffusion problems. The new method, called SPG, demonstrates its suitability in solving the typical equations of turbulence eddy viscosity models.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 15 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 April 2020

Wei Liu, Zhengdong Huang and Yunhua Liu

The purpose of this study is to propose an isogeometric analysis (IGA) approach for solving the Reynolds equation in textured piston ring cylinder liner (PRCL) contacts.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to propose an isogeometric analysis (IGA) approach for solving the Reynolds equation in textured piston ring cylinder liner (PRCL) contacts.

Design/methodology/approach

The texture region is accurately and conveniently expressed by non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) besides hydrodynamic pressure and the oil film density ratio is represented in this mathematical form. A quadratic programming method combined with a Lagrange multiplier method is developed to address the cavitation issue.

Findings

The comparison with the results solved by an analytical method has verified the effectiveness of the proposed approach. In the study of the PRCL contact with two-dimensional circular dimple textures, the solution of the IGA approach shows high smoothness and accuracy, and it well satisfies the complementarity condition in the case of cavitation presence.

Originality/value

This paper proposes an IGA approach for solving the Reynolds equation in textured PRCL contacts. Its novelty is reflected in three aspects. First, NURBS functions are simultaneously used to express the solution domain, texture shape, hydrodynamic pressure and oil density ratio. Second, the streamline upwind/Petrov–Galerkin method is adopted to create a weak form for the Reynolds equation that takes the oil density ratio as a first-order unknown variable. Third, a quadratic programming approach is developed to impose the complementarity conditions between the hydrodynamic pressure and the oil density ratio.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 37 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 October 2017

Dan Chen, Fen Liu, Yi Zhang, Yun Zhang and Huamin Zhou

The numerical simulation of dispersed-phase evolution in injection molding process of polymer blends is of great significance in both adjusting material microstructure and…

214

Abstract

Purpose

The numerical simulation of dispersed-phase evolution in injection molding process of polymer blends is of great significance in both adjusting material microstructure and improving performances of the final products. This paper aims to present a numerical strategy for the simulation of dispersed-phase evolution for immiscible polymer blends in injection molding.

Design/methodology/approach

First, the dispersed-phase modeling is discussed in detail. Then the Maffettone–Minale model, affine deformation model, breakup model and coalescence statistical model are chosen for the dispersed-phase evolution. A general coupled model of microscopic morphological evolution and macroscopic flow field is constructed. Besides, a stable finite element simulation strategy based on pressure-stabilizing/Petrov–Galerkin/streamline-upwind/Petrov–Galerkin method is adopted for both scales.

Findings

Finally, the simulation results are compared and evaluated with the experimental data, suggesting the reliability of the presented numerical strategy.

Originality/value

The coupled modeling of dispersed-phase and complex flow field during injection molding and the tracing and simulation of droplet evolution during the whole process can be achieved.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 34 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 October 2013

Mojtaba Talebian, Rafid Al-Khoury and Lambertus J. Sluys

This paper aims to present a computationally efficient finite element model for the simulation of isothermal immiscible two-phase flow in a rigid porous media with a particular…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present a computationally efficient finite element model for the simulation of isothermal immiscible two-phase flow in a rigid porous media with a particular application to CO2 sequestration in underground formations. Focus is placed on developing a numerical procedure, which is effectively mesh-independent and suitable to problems at regional scales.

Design/methodology/approach

The averaging theory is utilized to describe the governing equations of the involved unsaturated multiphase flow. The level-set (LS) method and the extended finite element method (XFEM) are utilized to simulate flow of the CO2 plume. The LS is employed to trace the plume front. A streamline upwind Petrov-Galerkin method is adopted to stabilize possible occurrence of spurious oscillations due to advection. The XFEM is utilized to model the high gradient in the saturation field front, where the LS function is used for enhancing the weighting and the shape functions.

Findings

The capability of the proposed model and its features are evaluated by numerical examples, demonstrating its accuracy, stability and convergence, as well as its advantages over standard and upwind techniques. The study showed that a good combination between a mathematical model and a numerical model enables the simulation of complicated processes occurring in complicated and large geometry using minimal computational efforts.

Originality/value

A new computational model for two-phase flow in porous media is introduced with basic requirements for accuracy, stability, and convergence, which are met using relatively coarse meshes.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 23 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 March 2015

Rosilene A. Kraft and Alvaro L. G. A. Coutinho

The purpose of this paper is to show benefits of deflated preconditioned conjugate gradients (CG) in the solution of transient, incompressible, viscous flows coupled with heat…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to show benefits of deflated preconditioned conjugate gradients (CG) in the solution of transient, incompressible, viscous flows coupled with heat transfer.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents the implementation of deflated preconditioned CG as the iterative driver for the system of linearized equations for viscous, incompressible flows and heat transfer simulations. The De Sampaio-Coutinho particular form of the Petrov-Galerkin Generalized Least Squares finite element formulation is used in the discretization of the governing equations, leading to symmetric positive definite matrices, allowing the use of the CG solver.

Findings

The use of deflation techniques improves the spectral condition number. The authors show in a number of problems of coupled viscous flow and heat transfer that convergence is achieved with a lower number of iterations and smaller time.

Originality/value

This work addressed for the first time the use of deflated CG for the solution of transient analysis of free/forced convection in viscous flows coupled with heat transfer.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 25 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1997

N. Nigro, M. Storti and S. Idelsohn

Addresses two difficulties which arise when using a compressible code with equal order interpolation (non‐staggered grids in the finite‐difference nomenclature) to capture a…

Abstract

Addresses two difficulties which arise when using a compressible code with equal order interpolation (non‐staggered grids in the finite‐difference nomenclature) to capture a steady‐state solution in the incompressible limit, i.e. at low Mach numbers. Explains that, first, numerical instabilities in the form of spurious oscillations in pressure pollute the solution and, second, the convergence to the steady state becomes extremely slow owing to bad conditioning of the different speeds of propagation. By using a stabilized method, allows the use of equal‐order interpolations in a consistent (weighted‐residual) formulation which stabilizes both the convection and the continuity terms at the same time. On the other hand, by using specially devised preconditioning, assures a rate of convergence independent of Mach number.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 7 no. 2/3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

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