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At least 109 records · Page 6

Spectral methods in fluid dynamics

Fundamental aspects of spectral methods are introduced. Recent developments in spectral methods are reviewed with an emphasis on collocation techniques. Their applications to both compressible and incompressible flows, to viscous as well as inviscid flows, and also to chemically reacting flows are surveyed. The key role that these methods play in the simulation of stability, transition, and turbulence is brought out. A perspective is provided on some of the obstacles that prohibit a wider use of these methods, and how these obstacles are being overcome.

Hussaini, M. Y.↗

An approximate viscous shock layer technique for calculating chemically reacting hypersonic flows about blunt-nosed bodies

An approximate axisymmetric method was developed which can reliably calculate fully viscous hypersonic flows over blunt nosed bodies. By substituting Maslen's second order pressure expression for the normal momentum equation, a simplified form of the viscous shock layer (VSL) equations is obtained. This approach can solve both the subsonic and supersonic regions of the shock layer without a starting solution for the shock shape. The approach is applicable to perfect gas, equilibrium, and nonequilibrium flowfields. Since the method is fully viscous, the problems associated with a boundary layer solution with an inviscid layer solution are avoided. This procedure is significantly faster than the parabolized Navier-Stokes (PNS) or VSL solvers and would be useful in a preliminary design environment. Problems associated with a previously developed approximate VSL technique are addressed before extending the method to nonequilibrium calculations. Perfect gas (laminar and turbulent), equilibrium, and nonequilibrium solutions were generated for airflows over several analytic body shapes. Surface heat transfer, skin friction, and pressure predictions are comparable to VSL results. In addition, computed heating rates are in good agreement with experimental data. The present technique generates its own shock shape as part of its solution, and therefore could be used to provide more accurate initial shock shapes for higher order procedures which require starting solutions.

Cheatwood, F. Mcneil↗

Analysis of artificial viscosity effects on reacting flows using a spectral multidomain technique

Standard techniques used to model chemically-reacting flows require an artificial viscosity for stability in the presence of strong shocks. The resulting shock is smeared over at least three computational cells, so that the thickness of the shock is dictated by the structure of the overall mesh and not the shock physics. A gas passing through a strong shock is thrown into a nonequilibrium state and subsequently relaxes down over some finite distance to an equilibrium end state. The artificial smearing of the shock envelops this relaxation zone which causes the chemical kinetics of the flow to be altered. A method is presented which can investigate these issues by following the chemical kinetics and flow kinetics of a gas passing through a fully resolved shock wave at hypersonic Mach numbers. A nonequilibrium chemistry model for air is incorporated into a spectral multidomain Navier-Stokes solution method. Since no artificial viscosity is needed for stability of the multidomain technique, the precise effect of this artifice on the chemical kinetics and relevant flow features can be determined.

Macaraeg, Michele G.↗

A flux splitting scheme with high-resolution and robustness for discontinuities

A flux splitting scheme is proposed for the general nonequilibrium flow equations with an aim at removing numerical dissipation of Van-Leer-type flux-vector splittings on a contact discontinuity. The scheme obtained is also recognized as an improved Advection Upwind Splitting Method (AUSM) where a slight numerical overshoot immediately behind the shock is eliminated. The proposed scheme has favorable properties: high-resolution for contact discontinuities; conservation of enthalpy for steady flows; numerical efficiency; applicability to chemically reacting flows. In fact, for a single contact discontinuity, even if it is moving, this scheme gives the numerical flux of the exact solution of the Riemann problem. Various numerical experiments including that of a thermo-chemical nonequilibrium flow were performed, which indicate no oscillation and robustness of the scheme for shock/expansion waves. A cure for carbuncle phenomenon is discussed as well.

Wada, Yasuhiro↗

Real gas flow computations using algebraic reduction

It is shown that algebraic reduction can be extensively used in the computation of source terms for chemical species in chemically reacting flow fields. Cases of computation from chemical equilibrium and frozen chemistry are considered. For the case of chemical equilibrium the implementation of algebraic reduction method is shown to produce satisfactory results with computational efficiency better than comparable methods. For the case of finite rate chemistry, algebraic reduction of the source term expression for the species is used to obtain a directly integrable expression.

Nagaraj, N.↗

An analysis of artificial viscosity effects on reacting flows using a spectral multi-domain technique

Standard techniques used to model chemically-reacting flows require an artificial viscosity for stability in the presence of strong shocks. The resulting shock is smeared over at least three computational cells, so that the thickness of the shock is dictated by the structure of the overall mesh and not the shock physics. A gas passing through a strong shock is thrown into a nonequilibrium state and subsequently relaxes down over some finite distance to an equilibrium end state. The artificial smearing of the shock envelops this relaxation zone which causes the chemical kinetics of the flow to be altered. A method is presented which can investigate these issues by following the chemical kinetics and flow kinetics of a gas passing through a fully resolved shock wave at hypersonic Mach numbers. A nonequilibrium chemistry model for air is incorporated into a spectral multidomain Navier-Stokes solution method. Since no artificial viscosity is needed for stability of the multidomain technique, the precise effect of this artifice on the chemical kinetics and relevant flow features can be determined.

Macaraeg, M. G.↗

Numerical computation of space shuttle orbiter flow field

A new parabolized Navier-Stokes (PNS) code has been developed to compute the hypersonic, viscous chemically reacting flow fields around 3-D bodies. The flow medium is assumed to be a multicomponent mixture of thermally perfect but calorically imperfect gases. The new PNS code solves the gas dynamic and species conservation equations in a coupled manner using a noniterative, implicit, approximately factored, finite difference algorithm. The space-marching method is made well-posed by special treatment of the streamwise pressure gradient term. The code has been used to compute hypersonic laminar flow of chemically reacting air over cones at angle of attack. The results of the computations are compared with the results of reacting boundary-layer computations and show excellent agreement.

Tannehill, John C.↗

Edge-Based Viscous Method for Mixed-Element Node-Centered Finite-Volume Solvers

A novel, efficient, edge-based viscous (EBV) discretization method has been recently developed, implemented in a practical, unstructured-grid, node-centered, finite-volume flow solver, and applied to viscous-kernel computations that include evaluations of meanflow viscous fluxes, turbulence-model and chemistry-model diffusion terms, and the corresponding Jacobian contributions. Initially, the EBV method had been implemented for tetrahedral grids and demonstrated multifold acceleration of all viscous-kernel computations. This paper presents an extension of the EBV method for mixed-element grids. In addition to the primal edges of a given mixed-element grid, virtual edges are introduced to connect cell nodes that are not connected by a primal edge. The EBV method uses an efficient loop over all (primal and virtual) edges and features a compact discretization stencil based on the nearest neighbors. This study verifies the EBV method and assesses its efficiency on mixed-element grids by comparing the EBV solution accuracy and iterative convergence with those of well-established solutions obtained using a cell-based viscous (CBV) discretization method. The EBV solver’s memory footprint is optimized and often smaller than the memory footprint of the CBV solver. A multifold speedup is demonstrated for all viscous-kernel computations resulting in significant reduction of the time to solutions for several benchmark mixed-element-grid computations, including simulations of a flow around NASA’s juncture-flow model and a hypersonic, chemically reacting flow around a blunt body.

CFD↗

Edge-Based Viscous Method for Mixed-Element Node-Centered Finite-Volume Solvers

A novel, efficient, edge-based viscous (EBV) discretization method has been recently developed, implemented in a practical, unstructured-grid, node-centered, finite-volume flow solver, and applied to viscous-kernel computations that include evaluations of meanflow viscous fluxes, turbulence-model and chemistry-model diffusion terms, and the corresponding Jacobian contributions. Initially, the EBV method had been implemented for tetrahedral grids and demonstrated multifold acceleration of all viscous-kernel computations. This paper presents an extension of the EBV method for mixed-element grids. In addition to the primal edges of a given mixed-element grid, virtual edges are introduced to connect cell nodes that are not connected by a primal edge. The EBV method uses an efficient loop over all (primal and virtual) edges and features a compact discretization stencil based on the nearest neighbors. This study verifies the EBV method and assesses its efficiency on mixed-element grids by comparing the EBV solution accuracy and iterative convergence with those of well-established solutions obtained using a cell-based viscous (CBV) discretization method. The EBV solver’s memory footprint is optimized and often smaller than the memory footprint of the CBV solver. A multifold speedup is demonstrated for all viscous-kernel computations resulting in significant reduction of the time to solutions for several benchmark mixed-element-grid computations, including simulations of a flow around NASA’s juncture-flow model and a hypersonic, chemically reacting flow around a blunt body.

Edge-based viscous method↗

An efficient, explicit finite-rate algorithm to compute flows in chemical nonequilibrium

An explicit finite-rate code was developed to compute hypersonic viscous chemically reacting flows about three-dimensional bodies. Equations describing the finite-rate chemical reactions were fully coupled to the gas dynamic equations using a new coupling technique. The new technique maintains stability in the explicit finite-rate formulation while permitting relatively large global time steps.

Palmer, Grant↗

Direct numerical simulation of reacting flows

The objectives of this work are: (1) to extend the technique of direct numerical simulations to turbulent, chemically reacting flows, (2) to test the validity of the method by comparing computational results with laboratory data, and (3) to use the simulations to gain a better understanding of the effects of turbulence on chemical reactions. The effects of both the large scale structure and the smaller scale turbulence on the overall reaction rates are addressed. The relationship between infinite reaction rate and finite reaction rate chemistry is compared with some of the results of calculations with existing theories and laboratory data. The direct numerical simulation method involves the numerical solution of the detailed evolution of the complex turbulent velocity and concentration fields. Using very efficient numerical methods (e.g., pseudospectral methods), the fully nonlinear (possibly low pass filtered) equations of motion are solved and no closure assumptions or turbulence models are used. Statistical data are obtained by performing spatial, temporal, and/or ensemble averages over the computed flow fields.

Riley, J. J.↗

Time-dependent-bases with local CUR decomposition method for accelerating turbulent combustion simulations

Here, this study presents a novel reduced-order modeling framework, Time-Dependent Bases with Local CUR decomposition (TDB-L-CUR), designed to efficiently and accurately approximate the species transport equations in reacting flow simulations. The method extends the existing TDB-CUR approach for chemically reacting flows (Jung et al. Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 437 (2025) 117758), which leverages matrix decomposition techniques to form a global-in-space, time-dependent low-dimensional manifold. While TDB-CUR performs well in homogeneous systems, it may be less well-suited to spatially heterogeneous systems such as turbulent flames, where higher-rank approximations are typically required. The proposed TDB-L-CUR framework introduces two methodological extensions to the baseline approach. First, it applies unsupervised clustering to partition the physical domain into distinct regions, enabling spatially localized manifold construction, thereby reducing the rank required for the reduced-order representation. Second, it incorporates a computational singular perturbation (CSP)-based scheme for identifying and penalizing fast species, allowing for spatio-temporally adaptive mitigation of chemical stiffness. The proposed framework is validated on a hierarchy of test cases, including a one-dimensional premixed flame, a two-dimensional nonpremixed ignition case with vortex interaction, and a three-dimensional turbulent premixed flame. TDB-L-CUR significantly improves accuracy over TDB-CUR while further reducing computational cost. The fully on-the-fly formulation of TDB-L-CUR (i.e., requiring no offline training or prior knowledge) makes it a robust and scalable tool for reduced-order modeling of reactive flows.

Local manifold↗

LES, DNS and RANS for the analysis of high-speed turbulent reacting flows

The purpose of this research is to continue our efforts in advancing the state of knowledge in large eddy simulation (LES), direct numerical simulation (DNS), and Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) methods for the computational analysis of high-speed reacting turbulent flows. In the second phase of this work, covering the period 1 Aug. 1994 - 31 Jul. 1995, we have focused our efforts on two programs: (1) developments of explicit algebraic moment closures for statistical descriptions of compressible reacting flows and (2) development of Monte Carlo numerical methods for LES of chemically reacting flows.

Adumitroaie, V.↗

A second-order closure analysis of turbulent diffusion flames

A complete second-order closure computer program for the investigation of compressible, turbulent, reacting shear layers was developed. The equations for the means and the second order correlations were derived from the time-averaged Navier-Stokes equations and contain third order and higher order correlations, which have to be modeled in terms of the lower-order correlations to close the system of equations. In addition to fluid mechanical turbulence models and parameters used in previous studies of a variety of incompressible and compressible shear flows, a number of additional scalar correlations were modeled for chemically reacting flows, and a typical eddy model developed for the joint probability density function for all the scalars. The program which is capable of handling multi-species, multistep chemical reactions, was used to calculate nonreacting and reacting flows in a hydrogen-air diffusion flame.

Varma, A. K.↗

A shock capturing technique for hypersonic, chemically relaxing flows

A fully coupled, shock capturing technique is presented for chemically reacting flows at high Mach numbers. The technique makes use of a total variation diminishing (TVD) dissipation operator which results in sharp, crisp shocks. The eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the fully coupled system, which includes species conversion equations in addition to the gas dynamics equations, are analytically derived for a general reacting gas. Species production terms for a model dissociating gas are introduced and are included in the algorithm. The convective terms are solved using a first-order TVD scheme while the source terms are solved using a fourth-order Runge-Kutta scheme to enhance stability. Results from one-dimensional numerical experiments are shown for a two species and a three species gas.

Eberhardt, S.↗

Analysis of supersonic combustion flow fields with embedded subsonic regions

The viscous characteristic analysis for supersonic chemically reacting flows was extended to include provisions for analyzing embedded subsonic regions. The numerical method developed to analyze this mixed subsonic-supersonic flow fields is described. The boundary conditions are discussed related to the supersonic-subsonic and subsonic-supersonic transition, as well as a heuristic description of several other numerical schemes for analyzing this problem. An analysis of shock waves generated either by pressure mismatch between the injected fluid and surrounding flow or by chemical heat release is also described.

Dash, S.↗

Computer Code For Propulsive Flow

Finite Difference Navier-Stokes (FDNS) computer code applies to complicated geometries and chemically reacting flows including turbulence and thermal interactions with walls. Used to solve two-dimensional planar, two-dimensional axisymmetric, or three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations of flow along with associated equations for generation, consumption, and transport of heat and of chemical species.

Chen, Y. S.↗

Computation of Reacting Flows in Combustion Processes

The objective of this research is to develop an efficient numerical algorithm with unstructured grids for the computation of three-dimensional chemical reacting flows that are known to occur in combustion components of propulsion systems. During the grant period (1996 to 1999), two companion codes have been developed and various numerical and physical models were implemented into the two codes.

Keith, Theo G., Jr.↗