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The purpose of this paper is to investigate and improve a new method of unstructured rotational dynamic overset grids, which can be used to simulate the unsteady flows around rotational parts of aircraft.

The computational domain is decomposed into two sub-domains, namely, the rotational sub-domain which contains the rotational boundaries, and the stationary sub-domain which contains the remainder flow field including the stationary boundaries. The artificial boundaries and restriction boundaries are used as the restriction condition to generate the entire computational grid, and then the overset grids are established according to the radius parameters of artificial boundaries set previously. The deformation of rotational boundary is treated by using the linear spring analogy method which is suitable for the dynamic unstructured grid. The unsteady Navier-Stokes/Euler equations are solved separately in the rotational sub-domain and stationary sub-domain, and data coupling is accomplished through the overlapping area. The least squares method is used to interpolate the flow variables for the artificial boundary points with a higher calculating precision. Implicit lower-upper symmetric-Gauss-Seidel (LU-SGS) time stepping scheme is implemented to accelerate the inner iteration during the unsteady simulation.

The airfoil steady flow, airfoil pitching unsteady flow, three-dimensional (3-D) rotor flow field, rotor-fuselage interaction unsteady flow field and the flutter exciting system unsteady flow field are numerically simulated, and the results have good agreements with the experimental data. It is shown that the present method is valid and efficient for the prediction of complicated unsteady problems which contain rotational dynamic boundaries.

The results are entirely based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and the 3D simulations are based on the Euler equations in which the viscous effect is ignored. The current work shows further applicable potential to simulate unsteady flow around rotational parts of aircraft.

The current study can be used to simulate the two-dimensional airfoil pitching, 3-D rotor flow field, rotor-fuselage interaction and the flutter exciting system unsteady flow. The work will help the aircraft designer to get the unsteady flow character around rotational parts of aircraft.

A new type of rotational dynamic overset grids is presented and validated, and the current work has a significant contribution to the development of unstructured rotational dynamic overset grids.

This work aims to describe the physical and numerical modeling of a CFD solver for hypersonic flows in thermo-chemical non-equilibrium. This paper is the second of a two-part series that concerns the application of the solver introduced in Part I to adaptive unstructured meshes.

The governing equations are discretized with an edge-based stabilized finite element method (FEM). Chemical non-equilibrium is simulated using a laminar finite-rate kinetics, while a two-temperature model is used to account for thermodynamic non-equilibrium. The equations for total quantities, species and vibrational-electronic energy conservation are loosely coupled to provide flexibility and ease of implementation. To accurately perform simulations on unstructured meshes, the non-equilibrium flow solver is coupled with an edge-based anisotropic mesh optimizer driven by the solution Hessian to carry out mesh refinement, coarsening, edge swapping and node movement.

The paper shows, through comparisons with experimental and other numerical results, how FEM + anisotropic mesh optimization are the natural choice to accurately simulate hypersonic non-equilibrium flows on unstructured meshes. Three-dimensional test cases demonstrate how, for high-speed flows, shocks resolution, and not necessarily boundary layers resolution, is the main driver of solution accuracy at walls. Equally distributing the error among all elements in a suitably defined Riemannian space yields highly anisotropic grids that feature well-resolved shock waves. The resulting high level of accuracy in the computation of the enthalpy jump translates into accurate wall heat flux predictions. At the opposite end, in all cases examined, high-quality but isotropic unstructured meshes gave very poor solutions with severely inadequate heat flux distributions not even featuring expected symmetries. The paper unequivocally demonstrates that unstructured anisotropically adapted meshes are the best, and may be the only, way for accurate and cost-effective hypersonic flow solutions.

Although many hypersonic flow solvers are developed for unstructured meshes, few numerical simulations on unstructured meshes are presented in the literature. This work demonstrates that the proposed approach can be used successfully for hypersonic flows on unstructured meshes.

The purpose of this paper is to present outcomes of efforts made over the last 20 years to extend the applicability of the Richardson extrapolation procedure to numerical predictions of multidimensional, steady and unsteady, fluid flow and heat transfer phenomena in regular and irregular calculation domains.

Pattern-preserving grid-refinement strategies are proposed for mathematically rigorous generalizations of the Richardson extrapolation procedure for numerical predictions of steady fluid flow and heat transfer, using finite volume methods and structured multidimensional Cartesian grids; and control-volume finite element methods and unstructured two-dimensional planar grids, consisting of three-node triangular elements. Mathematically sound extrapolation procedures are also proposed for numerical solutions of unsteady and boundary-layer-type problems. The applicability of such procedures to numerical solutions of problems with curved boundaries and internal interfaces, and also those based on unstructured grids of general quadrilateral, tetrahedral, or hexahedral elements, is discussed.

Applications to three demonstration problems, with discretizations in the asymptotic regime, showed the following: the apparent orders of accuracy were the same as those of the numerical methods used; and the extrapolated results, measures of error, and a grid convergence index, could be obtained in a smooth and non-oscillatory manner.

Strict or approximate pattern-preserving grid-refinement strategies are used to propose generalized Richardson extrapolation procedures for estimating grid-independent numerical solutions. Such extrapolation procedures play an indispensable role in the verification and validation techniques that are employed to assess the accuracy of numerical predictions which are used for designing, optimizing, virtual prototyping, and certification of thermofluid systems.

As computer simulation increasingly supports engineering design and manufacture, the requirement for a computer software environment providing an integration platform for computational engineering software increases. The potential benefits to industry are considerable. As a first step in the long‐term development of such a system, a computer software environment has been developed for pre‐ and post‐processing for unstructured grid‐based computational simulation. Arbitrary computer application software can be integrated into the environment to provide a multi‐disciplinary engineering analysis capability within one unified computational framework. Recognising the computational demands of many application areas, the environment includes a set of parallel tools to help the user maximise the potential of high performance computers and networks. The paper will present details of the environment and include an example of, and discussion about, the integration of application software.

The purpose of this paper is to simulate the behaviour of the symmetrical turn‐up vortex amplifier (STuVA) to obtain insight into its maximum through‐flow operation within the eight‐port STuVA, and understand the relation between its design parameters and flow characteristics. Furthermore, it is to test the performance of different turbulent models and near‐wall models using the same grid, the same numerical methods and the same computational fluid dynamics code under multiple impingement conditions.

Three turbulence models, the standard k‐ε, the renormalization group (RNG) k‐ε model and the Reynolds stress model (RSM), and three near‐wall models have been used to simulate the confined incompressible turbulent flow in an eight‐port STuVA using unstructured meshes. The STuVA is a special symmetrical design of turn‐up vortex amplifier, and the simulation focused on its extreme operation in the maximum flow state with no swirling. The predictions were compared with basic pressure‐drop flow rate measurements made using air at ambient conditions. The effect of different combinations of turbulence and near‐wall models was evaluated.

The RSM gave predictions slightly closer to the experimental data than the other models, although the RNG k‐ε model predicted nearly as accurately as the RSM. They both improved errors by about 3 per cent compared to the standard k‐ε model but took a long time for convergence. The modelling of complex flows depends not only on the turbulence model but also on the near‐wall treatments and computational economy. In this study a good combination was the RSM, the two layer wall model and the higher order discretization scheme, which improved accuracy by more than 10 per cent compared to the standard k‐ε model, the standard wall function and first order upwind.

The results of this paper are valid for the global pressure drop flow rate. It should be desirable to compare some local information with the experiment.

This paper provides insight into the maximum through‐flow operation within the eight‐port STuVA to understand the relation between its design parameters and flow characteristics and study the performance of turbulence and near wall models.

The purpose of this study is to propose a precise and standardized strategy for numerically simulating vehicle aerodynamics.

Error sources in computational fluid dynamics were analyzed. Additionally, controllable experiential and discretization errors, which significantly influence the calculated results, are expounded upon. Considering the airflow mechanism around a vehicle, the computational efficiency and accuracy of each solution strategy were compared and analyzed through numerous computational cases. Finally, the most suitable numerical strategy, including the turbulence model, simplified vehicle model, calculation domain, boundary conditions, grids and discretization scheme, was identified. Two simplified vehicle models were introduced, and relevant wind tunnel tests were performed to validate the selected strategy.

Errors in vehicle computational aerodynamics mainly stem from the unreasonable simplification of the vehicle model, calculation domain, definite solution conditions, grid strategy and discretization schemes. Using the proposed standardized numerical strategy, the simulated steady and transient aerodynamic characteristics agreed well with the experimental results.

Building upon the modified Low-Reynolds Number k-e model and Scale Adaptive Simulation model, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, a precise and standardized numerical simulation strategy for vehicle aerodynamics is proposed for the first time, which can be integrated into vehicle research and design.

The paper aims to use the finite volume method widely used in computational fluid dynamics to avoid the serious remeshing and mesh distortion during aluminium profile extrusion processes simulation when using the finite element method. Block-structured grids are used to fit the complex domain of the extrusion. A finite volume method (FVM) model for aluminium extrusion numerical simulation using non-orthogonal structured grids was established.

The influences of the elements ' nonorthogonality on the governing equations discretization of the metal flow in aluminium extrusion processes were fully considered to ensure the simulation accuracy. Volume-of-fluid (VOF) scheme was used to catch the free surface of the unsteady flow. Rigid slip boundary condition was applied on non-orthogonal grids.

This paper involved a simulation of a typical aluminium extrusion process by the FVM scheme. By comparing the simulation by the FVM model established in this paper with the ones simulated by the finite element method (FEM) software Deform-3D and the corresponding experiments, the correctness and efficiency of the FVM model for aluminium alloy profile extrusion processes in this paper was proved.

This paper uses the FVM widely used in CFD to calculate the aluminium profile extrusion processes avoiding the remeshing and mesh distortion during aluminium profile extrusion processes simulation when using the finite element method. Block-structured grids with the advantage of simple data structure, small storage and high numerical efficiency are used to fit the complex domain of the extrusion.

A control‐volume based method for the numerical calculation of axisymmetric incompressible fluid flow and heat transfer is presented. The proposed method extends the staggered grid approach to unstructured triangular meshes. The velocities are stored at the vertices and the edges of a triangle, pressure and temperature are stored at the vertices. Accordingly, velocities are interpolated in a quadratic way, pressure and temperature linearly. The accuracy of the proposed method is examined for a number of different testproblems. Compared to a linear interpolation scheme implemented in the same code, more accurate solutions and smaller computation times are obtained for the proposed quadratic scheme. The method was designed for and is about to be applied to the numerical simulation of crystal growth.

When a multi component alloy solidifies the redistribution of solute components leads to the formation of macrosegregation patterns. Blending ideas from a number of recent publications the purpose of this paper is to provide a “best practice” on how grid convergence of a given macrosegregation simulation can be measured and determined.

The best practice is arrived at by considering a benchmark problem consisting of a 2D-casting simulation of an idealized Al-4.5%Cu alloy in a side cooled square (76×76 mm) cavity. The model for this simulation is based on a mixture treatment of the relevant heat and mass transfer equations. Simulations are made using three increasingly refined grid sizes.

The best practice to determine grid resolution involves two steps: first, a visual evaluation of predicted segregation images leading to the evaluation of solute profiles along selected transects; and second, the construction of a cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the predicted segregation field. On application to the benchmark problem, it is concluded that current computer resources are insufficient to grid resolve macrosegregation patterns but that the CDF provides a useful signal of the nature of macrosegregation in a given system.

The benchmark is chosen to be representative. Exact convergence behavior, however, may depend on the system chosen.

In addition to establishing a best practice for measuring grid resolution of macrosegregation simulations the work also highlights, even in the absence of complete grid convergence, how the recently proposed CDF treatment can inform solidification modeling and process understanding.

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.

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.

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.

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

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