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At least 1,189 records · Page 66

Convergence speeding up in the calculation of the viscous flow about an airfoil

A finite volume method to solve the three dimensional Navier-Stokes equations was developed. It is based on a cell-vertex scheme with central differences and explicit Runge-Kutta time steps. A good convergence for a stationary solution was obtained by the use of local time steps, implicit smoothing of the residues, a multigrid algorithm, and a carefully controlled artificial dissipative term. The method is illustrated by results for transonic profiles and airfoils. The method allows a routine solution of the Navier-Stokes equations.

Radespiel, R.↗

Multiprocessing on supercomputers for computational aerodynamics

Very little use is made of multiple processors available on current supercomputers (computers with a theoretical peak performance capability equal to 100 MFLOPs or more) in computational aerodynamics to significantly improve turnaround time. The productivity of a computer user is directly related to this turnaround time. In a time-sharing environment, the improvement in this speed is achieved when multiple processors are used efficiently to execute an algorithm. The concept of multiple instructions and multiple data (MIMD) through multi-tasking is applied via a strategy which requires relatively minor modifications to an existing code for a single processor. Essentially, this approach maps the available memory to multiple processors, exploiting the C-FORTRAN-Unix interface. The existing single processor code is mapped without the need for developing a new algorithm. The procedure for building a code utilizing this approach is automated with the Unix stream editor. As a demonstration of this approach, a Multiple Processor Multiple Grid (MPMG) code is developed. It is capable of using nine processors, and can be easily extended to a larger number of processors. This code solves the three-dimensional, Reynolds averaged, thin-layer and slender-layer Navier-Stokes equations with an implicit, approximately factored and diagonalized method. The solver is applied to generic oblique-wing aircraft problem on a four processor Cray-2 computer. A tricubic interpolation scheme is developed to increase the accuracy of coupling of overlapped grids. For the oblique-wing aircraft problem, a speedup of two in elapsed (turnaround) time is observed in a saturated time-sharing environment.

Yarrow, Maurice↗

Viscous computations using a direct solver

Laminar viscous flows over airfoils are investigated analytically, applying the flux-difference splitting scheme of Roe (1986) to solve the thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations. Central-difference discretization is used for the viscous terms, and a fully implicit implementation is employed to minimize the Reynolds-number effect on convergence. Results for flows at freestream Mach number 0.5 and Reynolds number 5000 over NACA0012 airfoils at angles of attack 0 and 3 deg are presented graphically and discussed in detail. Good agreement with previous calculations is obtained, with accurate reproduction of essential features despite the use of coarser meshes.

Venkatakrishnan, V.↗

Moment-based adaptive time integration for thermal radiation transport

Here, in this paper we develop a framework for moment-based adaptive time integration of deterministic multifrequency thermal radiation transpot (TRT). We generalize our recent semi-implicit-explicit (IMEX) integration framework for gray TRT to multifrequency TRT, and also introduce a semi-implicit variation that facilitates higher-order integration of TRT, where each stage is implicit in all components except opacities. To appeal to the broad literature on adaptivity with Runge–Kutta methods, we derive new embedded methods for four asymptotic preserving IMEX Runge–Kutta schemes we have found to be robust in our previous work on TRT and radiation hydrodynamics. We then use a moment-based high-order-low-order representation of the transport equations. Due to the high dimensionality, memory is always a concern in simulating TRT. We form error estimates and adaptivity in time purely based on temperature and radiation energy, for a trivial overhead in computational cost and memory usage compared with the base second order integrators. We then test the adaptivity in time on the tophat and Larsen problem, demonstrating the ability of the adaptive algorithm to naturally vary the timestep across 4–5 orders of magnitude, ranging from the dynamical timescales of the streaming regime to the thick diffusion limit.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Electronic coupling through natural amino acids

Myriad scientific domains concern themselves with biological electron transfer (ET) events that span across vast scales of rate and efficiency through a remarkably fine-tuned integration of amino acid (AA) sequences, electronic structure, dynamics, and environment interactions. Within this intricate scheme, many questions persist as to how proteins modulate electron-tunneling properties. To help elucidate these principles, we develop a model set of peptides representing the common α-helix and β-strand motifs including all natural AAs within implicit protein-environment solvation. Using an effective Hamiltonian strategy with density functional theory, we characterize the electronic coupling through these peptides, furthermore considering side-chain dynamics. For both motifs, predictions consistently show that backbone-mediated electronic coupling is distinctly sensitive to AA type (aliphatic, polar, aromatic, negatively charged and positively charged), and to side-chain orientation. The unique properties of these residues may be employed to design activated, deactivated, or switch-like superexchange pathways. Electronic structure calculations and Green’s function analyses indicate that localized shifts in the electron density along the peptide play a role in modulating these pathways, and further substantiate the experimentally observed behavior of proline residues as superbridges. The distinct sensitivities of tunneling pathways to sequence and conformation revealed in this electronic coupling database help improve our fundamental understanding of the broad diversity of ET reactivity and provide guiding principles for peptide design.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

A time-accurate implicit method for chemical non-equilibrium flows at all speeds

A new time accurate coupled solution procedure for solving the chemical non-equilibrium Navier-Stokes equations over a wide range of Mach numbers is described. The scheme is shown to be very efficient and robust for flows with velocities ranging from M less than or equal to 10(exp -10) to supersonic speeds.

Shuen, Jian-Shun↗

Tau leaping of stiff stochastic chemical systems via local central limit approximation

Stiffness manifests in stochastic dynamic systems in a more complex manner than in deterministic systems; it is not only important for a time-stepping method to remain stable but it is also important for the method to capture the asymptotic variances accurately. In the context of stochastic chemical systems, time stepping methods are known as tau leaping. Well known existing tau leaping methods have shortcomings in this regard. The implicit tau method is far more stable than the trapezoidal tau method but underestimates the asymptotic variance. On the other hand, the trapezoidal tau method which estimates the asymptotic variance exactly for linear systems suffers from the fact that the transients of the method do not decay fast enough in the context of very stiff systems. We propose a tau leaping method that possesses the same stability properties as the implicit method while it also captures the asymptotic variance with reasonable accuracy at least for the test system S{sub 1}↔S{sub 2}. The proposed method uses a central limit approximation (CLA) locally over the tau leaping interval and is referred to as the LCLA-τ. The CLA predicts the mean and covariance as solutions of certain differential equations (ODEs) and for efficiency we solve these using a single time step of a suitable low order method. We perform a mean/covariance stability analysis of various possible low order schemes to determine the best scheme. Numerical experiments presented show that LCLA-τ performs favorably for stiff systems and that the LCLA-τ is also able to capture bimodal distributions unlike the CLA itself. The proposed LCLA-τ method uses a split implicit step to compute the mean update. We also prove that any tau leaping method employing a split implicit step converges in the fluid limit to the implicit Euler method as applied to the fluid limit differential equation.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Upwind-biased, point-implicit relaxation strategies for hypersonic flowfield simulations on supercomputers

An upwind-biased, point-implicit relaxation algorithm for obtaining the numerical solution to the governing equations for three-dimensional, viscous, hypersonic flows in chemical and thermal nonequilibrium is described. The algorithm is derived using a finite-volume formulation in which the inviscid components of flux across cell walls are described with Roe's averaging and Harten's entropy fix with second-order corrections based on Yee's Symmetric Total Variation Diminishing scheme. The relaxation strategy is well suited for computers employing either vector or parallel architectures, and the relation between computer architecture and algorithm is emphasized. It is also well suited to the numerical solution of the governing equations on unstructured grids. Because of the point-implicit relaxation strategy, the algorithm remains stable at large Courant numbers without the necessity of solving large. block tri-diagonal systems. A single relaxation step depends only on information from nearest neighbors. Predictions for pressure distributions, surface heating, and aerodynamic coefficients compare well with experimental data for Mach 10 flow over a blunt body. Predictions for the hypersonic flow of air in chemical and thermal nonequilibrium (velocity = 8917 m/s, altitude = 78 km.) over the Aeroassist Flight Experiment (AFE) configuration obtained on a multi-domain grid are discussed.

Gnoffo, Peter A.↗

A finite-volume scheme for modeling compressible magnetohydrodynamic flows at low Mach numbers in stellar interiors

Fully compressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations are a fundamental tool for investigating the role of dynamo amplification in the generation of magnetic fields in deep convective layers of stars. The flows that arise in such environments are characterized by low (sonic) Mach numbers ($\mathscr{M}$ son ≲ 10 –2 ). In these regimes, conventional MHD codes typically show excessive dissipation and tend to be inefficient as the Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy (CFL) constraint on the time step becomes too strict. In this work we present a new method for efficiently simulating MHD flows at low Mach numbers in a space-dependent gravitational potential while still retaining all effects of compressibility. The proposed scheme is implemented in the finite-volume SEVEN-LEAGUE HYDRO (SLH) code, and it makes use of a low-Mach version of the five-wave Harten–Lax–van Leer discontinuities (HLLD) solver to reduce numerical dissipation, an implicit–explicit time discretization technique based on Strang splitting to overcome the overly strict CFL constraint, and a well-balancing method that dramatically reduces the magnitude of spatial discretization errors in strongly stratified setups. The solenoidal constraint on the magnetic field is enforced by using a constrained transport method on a staggered grid. We carry out five verification tests, including the simulation of a small-scale dynamo in a star-like environment at $\mathscr{M}$ son ~ 10 –3 . We demonstrate that the proposed scheme can be used to accurately simulate compressible MHD flows in regimes of low Mach numbers and strongly stratified setups even with moderately coarse grids.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A fast platform for simulating semi-flexible fiber suspensions applied to cell mechanics

We present a novel platform for the large-scale simulation of three-dimensional fibrous structures immersed in a Stokesian fluid and evolving under confinement or in free-space in three dimensions. One of the main motivations for this work is to study the dynamics of fiber assemblies within biological cells. For this, we also incorporate the key biophysical elements that determine the dynamics of these assemblies, which include the polymerization and depolymerization kinetics of fibers, their interactions with molecular motors and other objects, their flexibility, and hydrodynamic coupling. This work, to our knowledge, is the first technique to include many-body hydrodynamic interactions (HIs), and the resulting fluid flows, in cellular assemblies of flexible fibers. We use non-local slender body theory to compute the fluid–structure interactions of the fibers and a second-kind boundary integral formulation for other rigid bodies and the confining boundary. A kernel-independent implementation of the fast multipole method is utilized for efficient evaluation of HIs. The deformation of the fibers is described by nonlinear Euler–Bernoulli beam theory and their polymerization is modeled by the reparametrization of the dynamic equations in the appropriate non-Lagrangian frame. We use a pseudo-spectral representation of fiber positions and implicit time-stepping to resolve large fiber deformations, and to allow time-steps not excessively constrained by temporal stiffness or fiber–fiber interactions. The entire computational scheme is parallelized, which enables simulating assemblies of thousands of fibers. We use our method to investigate two important questions in the mechanics of cell division: (i) the effect of confinement on the hydrodynamic mobility of microtubule asters; and (ii) the dynamics of the positioning of mitotic spindle in complex cell geometries. Finally to demonstrate the general applicability of the method, we simulate the sedimentation of a cloud of semi-flexible fibers.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Iterative spectral methods and spectral solutions to compressible flows

A spectral multigrid scheme is described which can solve pseudospectral discretizations of self-adjoint elliptic problems in O(N log N) operations. An iterative technique for efficiently implementing semi-implicit time-stepping for pseudospectral discretizations of Navier-Stokes equations is discussed. This approach can handle variable coefficient terms in an effective manner. Pseudospectral solutions of compressible flow problems are presented. These include one dimensional problems and two dimensional Euler solutions. Results are given both for shock-capturing approaches and for shock-fitting ones.

Hussaini, M. Y.↗

Two dimensional and axisymmetric heat transfer results with the CSCM upwind implicit algorithm

The single level conservative supra characteristic method (CSCM-S) is an upwind implicit method that is very robust and in a single level relaxation format makes efficient use of computer resources, and is very rapidly convergent. These factors render the unconditionally stable algorithm a useful compromise between Parabolized Navier-Stokes methods and two level linearized implicit time dependent methods and, thus, the method is very attractive for multidimensional Navier-Stokes problems. In this paper the heat transfer prediction capabilities of the CSCM schemes for flat plate, nozzle, blunt cone and bluff body flows are reported for the first time. Results are compared with available experimental heat transfer measurements.

Bardina, J.↗

Unsteady solution of incompressible Navier-Stokes equations

The numerical scheme used by the present time-accurate FEM numerical method for incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, using primitive variables as the unknowns, is a Crank-Nicholson implicit treatment of all equation terms with central differencing for space derivatives. The introduction of a continuous auxilliary system in pseudo-time, with artificial compressibility, yields the incompressible solution at the advanced time level; time-accurate solutions are thereby obtained for two-dimensional fluid flows in a square cavity, in the cases of both an impulsively starting lid and an oscillating lid.

Soh, W. Y.↗

Comparison of dynamical approximation schemes for nonlinear gravitaional clustering

We have recently conducted a controlled comparison of a number of approximations for gravitational clustering against the same n-body simulations. These include ordinary linear perturbation theory (Eulerian), the lognormal approximation, the adhesion approximation, the frozen-flow approximation, the Zel'dovich approximation (describable as first-order Lagrangian perturbation theory), and its second-order generalization. In the last two cases we also created new versions of the approximation by truncation, i.e., by smoothing the initial conditions with various smoothing window shapes and varying their sizes. The primary tool for comparing simulations to approximation schemes was cross-correlation of the evolved mass density fields, testing the extent to which mass was moved to the right place. The Zel'dovich approximation, with initial convolution with a Gaussian e(exp -k(exp 2)/k(sub G(exp 2)), where k(sub G) is adjusted to be just into the nonlinear regime of the evolved model (details in text) worked extremely well. Its second-order generalization worked slightly better. We recommend either n-body simulations or our modified versions of the Zel'dovich approximation, depending upon the purpose. The theoretical implication is that pancaking is implicit in all cosmological gravitational clustering, at least from Gaussian initial conditions, even when subcondensations are present. This in turn provides a natural explanation for the presence of sheets and filaments in the observed galaxy distribution. Use of the approximation scheme can permit extremely rapid generation of large numbers of realizations of model universes with good accuracy down to galaxy group mass scales.

Melott, Adrian L.↗

A multigrid solver for semi-implicit global shallow-water models

A multigrid solver is developed for the discretized two-dimensional elliptic equation on the sphere that arises from a semiimplicit time discretization of the global shallow-water equations. Different formulations of the semiimplicit scheme result in variable-coefficient Helmholtz-type equations for which no fast direct solvers are available. The efficiency of the multigrid solver is optimal, in the sense that the total operation count is proportional to the number of unknowns. Numerical experiments using initial data derived from actual 300-mb height and wind velocity fields indicate that the present model has very good accuracy and stability properties.

Barros, Saulo R. M.↗

Explicit and implicit compact high-resolution shock-capturing methods for multidimensional Euler equations 1: Formulation

Two classes of explicit compact high-resolution shock-capturing methods for the multidimensional compressible Euler equations for fluid dynamics are constructed. Some of these schemes can be fourth-order accurate away from discontinuities. For the semi-discrete case their shock-capturing properties are of the total variation diminishing (TVD), total variation bounded (TVB), total variation diminishing in the mean (TVDM), essentially nonoscillatory (ENO), or positive type of scheme for 1-D scalar hyperbolic conservation laws and are positive schemes in more than one dimension. These fourth-order schemes require the same grid stencil as their second-order non-compact cousins. One class does not require the standard matrix inversion or a special numerical boundary condition treatment associated with typical compact schemes. Due to the construction, these schemes can be viewed as approximations to genuinely multidimensional schemes in the sense that they might produce less distortion in spherical type shocks and are more accurate in vortex type flows than schemes based purely on one-dimensional extensions. However, one class has a more desirable high-resolution shock-capturing property and a smaller operation count in 3-D than the other class. The extension of these schemes to coupled nonlinear systems can be accomplished using the Roe approximate Riemann solver, the generalized Steger and Warming flux-vector splitting or the van Leer type flux-vector splitting. Modification to existing high-resolution second- or third-order non-compact shock-capturing computer codes is minimal. High-resolution shock-capturing properties can also be achieved via a variant of the second-order Lax-Friedrichs numerical flux without the use of Riemann solvers for coupled nonlinear systems with comparable operations count to their classical shock-capturing counterparts. The simplest extension to viscous flows can be achieved by using the standard fourth-order compact or non-compact formula for the viscous terms.

Yee, H. C.↗

Stability of mixing layers

The research program for the first year of this project (see the original research proposal) consists of developing an explicit marching scheme for solving the parabolized stability equations (PSE). Performing mathematical analysis of the computational algorithm including numerical stability analysis and the determination of the proper boundary conditions needed at the boundary of the computation domain are implicit in the task. Before one can solve the parabolized stability equations for high-speed mixing layers, the mean flow must first be found. In the past, instability analysis of high-speed mixing layer has mostly been performed on mean flow profiles calculated by the boundary layer equations. In carrying out this project, it is believed that the boundary layer equations might not give an accurate enough nonparallel, nonlinear mean flow needed for parabolized stability analysis. A more accurate mean flow can, however, be found by solving the parabolized Navier-Stokes equations. The advantage of the parabolized Navier-Stokes equations is that its accuracy is consistent with the PSE method. Furthermore, the method of solution is similar. Hence, the major part of the effort of the work of this year has been devoted to the development of an explicit numerical marching scheme for the solution of the Parabolized Navier-Stokes equation as applied to the high-seed mixing layer problem.

Tam, Christopher↗

Pressure stability in explicitly coupled simulations of poromechanics with application to CO 2 sequestration

We study in detail the pressure stabilizing effects of the non-iterated fixed-stress splitting in poromechanical problems which are nearly undrained and incompressible. When applied in conjunction with a spatial discretization which does not satisfy the discrete inf–sup condition, namely a mixed piecewise linear–piecewise constant spatial discretization, the explicit fixed-stress scheme can have a pressure stabilizing effect in transient problems. This effect disappears, however, upon time step refinement or the attainment of steady state. The interpretation of the scheme as an Augmented Lagrangian method similar to Uzawa iteration for incompressible flow helps explain these results. Moreover, due to the slowly evolving solution within undrained seal regions, we show that the explicit fixed-stress scheme requires very large time steps to reveal its pressure stabilizing effect in examples of geologic CO 2 sequestration. We note that large time steps can result in large errors in drained regions, such as the aquifer or reservoir regions of these examples, and can prevent convergence of nonlinear solvers in the case of multiphase flows, which can make the explicit scheme an unreliable source of pressure stabilization. We conclude by demonstrating that pressure jump stabilization is as effective in the explicit fixed-stress setting as in the fully implicit setting for undrained problems, while maintaining the stability and convergence of the fixed-stress split for drained problems.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗