We investigate the ultra weak variational formulation (UWVF) of the 2-D Helmholtz equation using a new choice of basis functions. Traditionally the UWVF basis functions are chosen to be plane waves. Here, we instead use first kind Bessel functions. We compare the performance of the two bases. Moreover, we show that it is possible to use coupled plane wave and Bessel bases in the same mesh. As test cases we shall consider propagating plane and evanescent waves in a rectangular domain and a singular 2-D Helmholtz problem in an L-shaped domain.

In this paper Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) has been used in order to perform Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) for porous media analysis. Among the different configurations of porous media, open cell metallic foams are gaining a key role for a large number of applications, like heat exchangers for high performance cars or aeronautic components as well. Their structure allows improving heat transfer process with fruitful advantages for packaging issues and size reduction. In order to better understand metallic foam capabilities, a random sphere generation code has been implemented and fluid-dynamic simulations have been carried out by means of a kinetic approach. After having defined a computational domain the Reynolds number influence has been studied with the aim of characterizing both pressure drop and friction factor throughout a finite foam volume. In order to validate the proposed model, a comparison analysis with experimental data has been carried out too.

Accurate simulations of high-speed rarefied flows present many physical and computational challenges. Toward this end, the present work extends the Unified Gas Kinetic Scheme (UGKS) to a wider range of Mach and Knudsen numbers by implementing WENO (Weighted Essentially Non-Oscillatory) interpolation. Then the UGKS is employed to simulate the canonical problem of lid-driven cavity flow at high speeds. Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) computations are also performed when appropriate for comparison. The effect of aspect ratio, Knudsen number and Mach number on cavity flow physics is examined leading to important insight.

High-order discretization techniques offer the potential to significantly reduce the computational costs necessary to obtain accurate predictions when compared to lower-order methods. However, efficient and universally-applicable high-order discretizations remain somewhat illusive, especially for more arbitrary unstructured meshes and for incompressible/low-speed flows. A novel, high-order, central essentially non-oscillatory (CENO), cell-centered, finite-volume scheme is proposed for the solution of the conservation equations of viscous, incompressible flows on three-dimensional unstructured meshes. Similar to finite element methods, coordinate transformations are used to maintain the scheme’s order of accuracy even when dealing with arbitrarily-shaped cells having non-planar faces. The proposed scheme is applied to the pseudo-compressibility formulation of the steady and unsteady Navier-Stokes equations and the resulting discretized equations are solved with a parallel implicit Newton-Krylov algorithm. For unsteady flows, a dual-time stepping approach is adopted and the resulting temporal derivatives are discretized using the family of high-order backward difference formulas (BDF). The proposed finite-volume scheme for fully unstructured mesh is demonstrated to provide both fast and accurate solutions for steady and unsteady viscous flows.

In the paper, we develop and analyze a new mass-preserving splitting domain decomposition method over multiple sub-domains for solving parabolic equations. The domain is divided into non-overlapping multi-bock sub-domains. On the interfaces of sub-domains, the interface fluxes are computed by the semi-implicit (explicit) flux scheme. The solutions and fluxes in the interiors of sub-domains are computed by the splitting one-dimensional implicit solution-flux coupled scheme. The important feature is that the proposed scheme is mass conservative over multiple non-overlapping sub-domains. Analyzing the mass-preserving S-DDM scheme is difficult over non-overlapping multi-block sub-domains due to the combination of the splitting technique and the domain decomposition at each time step. We prove theoretically that our scheme satisfies conservation of mass over multi-block non-overlapping sub-domains and it is unconditionally stable. We further prove the convergence and obtain the error estimate in L2-norm. Numerical experiments confirm theoretical results.

In this paper, a lattice Boltzmann BGK (LBGK) model is proposed for simulating incompressible axisymmetric flows. Unlike other existing axisymmetric lattice Boltzmann models, the present LBGK model can eliminate the compressible effects only with the small Mach number limit. Furthermore the source terms of the model are simple and contain no velocity gradients. Through the Chapman-Enskog expansion, the macroscopic equations for incompressible axisymmetric flows can be exactly recovered from the present LBGK model. Numerical simulations of the Hagen-Poiseuille flow, the pulsatile Womersley flow, the flow over a sphere, and the swirling flow in a closed cylindrical cavity are performed. The results agree well with the analytic solutions and the existing numerical or experimental data reported in some previous studies.

In this paper, we are concerned with probabilistic high order numerical schemesfor Cauchy problems of fully nonlinear parabolic PDEs. For such parabolic PDEs,it is shown by Cheridito, Soner, Touzi and Victoir [4] that the associated exactsolutions admit probabilistic interpretations, i.e., the solution of a fullynonlinear parabolic PDE solves a corresponding second order forward backwardstochastic differential equation (2FBSDEs). Our numerical schemes rely onsolving those 2FBSDEs, by extending our previous results [W. Zhao, Y. Fu and T.Zhou, SIAM J. Sci. Comput., 36 (2014), pp. A1731-A1751.]. Moreover, in ournumerical schemes, one has the flexibility to choose the associated forward SDE,and a suitable choice can significantly reduce the computational complexity.Various numerical examples including the HJB equations are presented to show theeffectiveness and accuracy of the proposed numerical schemes.

In this paper, we extend the high order finite-difference method with subcell resolution (SR) in [34] for two-species stiff one-reaction models to multispecies and multireaction inviscid chemical reactive flows, which are significantly more difficult because of the multiple scales generated by different reactions. For reaction problems, when the reaction time scale is very small, the reaction zone scale is also small and the governing equations become very stiff. Wrong propagation speed of discontinuity may occur due to the underresolved numerical solution in both space and time. The present SR method for reactive Euler system is a fractional step method. In the convection step, any high order shock-capturing method can be used. In the reaction step, an ODE solver is applied but with certain computed flow variables in the shock region modified by the Harten subcell resolution idea. Several numerical examples of multispecies and multireaction reactive flows are performed in both one and two dimensions. Studies demonstrate that the SR method can capture the correct propagation speed of discontinuities in very coarse meshes.

Assumed having axial symmetry, the streamer discharge is often described by a fluid model in cylindrical coordinate system, which consists of convection dominated (diffusion) equations with source terms, coupled with a Poisson’s equation. Without additional care for a stricter CFL condition or special treatment to the negative source term, popular methods used in streamer discharge simulations, e.g., FEM-FCT, FVM, cannot ensure the positivity of the particle densities for the cases in attaching gases. By introducing the positivity-preserving limiter proposed by Zhang and Shu [15] and Strang operator splitting, this paper proposes a finite difference scheme with a provable positivity-preserving property in cylindrical coordinate system, for the numerical simulation of streamer discharges in non-attaching and attaching gases. Numerical examples in non-attaching gas (N2) and attaching gas (SF6) are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the scheme.

In this work the previously developed Lattice Boltzmann-Direct Forcing/ Fictitious Domain (LB-DF/FD) method is adopted to simulate the sedimentation of eight circular particles under gravity at an intermediate Reynolds number of about 248. The particle clustering and the resulting Drafting-Kissing-Tumbling (DKT) motion which takes place for the first time are explored. The effects of initial particle-particle gap on the DKT motion are found significant. In addition, the trajectories of particles are presented under different initial particle-particle gaps, which display totally three kinds of falling patterns provided that no DKT motion takes place, i.e. the concave-down shape, the shape of letter “M” and “in-line” shape. Furthermore, the lateral and vertical hydrodynamic forces on the particles are investigated. It has been found that the value of Strouhal number for all particles is the same which is about 0.157 when initial particle-particle gap is relatively large. The wall effects on falling patterns and particle expansions are examined in the final.

A thermal lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) for two-phase fluid flows in nucleate pool boiling process is proposed. In the present method, a new function for heat transfer is introduced to the isothermal LBM for two-phase immiscible fluids with large density differences. The calculated temperature is substituted into the pressure tensor, which is used for the calculation of an order parameter representing two phases so that bubbles can be formed by nucleate boiling. By using this method, two-dimensional simulations of nucleate pool boiling by a heat source on a solid wall are carried out with the boundary condition for a constant heat flux. The flow characteristics and temperature distribution in the nucleate pool boiling process are obtained. It is seen that a bubble nucleation is formed at first and then the bubble grows and leaves the wall, finally going up with deformation by the buoyant effect. In addition, the effects of the gravity and the surface wettability on the bubble diameter at departure are numerically investigated. The calculated results are in qualitative agreement with other theoretical predictions with available experimental data.

We couple a node-centered finite volume method to a high order finite difference method to simulate dynamic earthquake ruptures along nonplanar faults in two dimensions. The finite volume method is implemented on an unstructured mesh, providing the ability to handle complex geometries. The geometric complexities are limited to a small portion of the overall domain and elsewhere the high order finite difference method is used, enhancing efficiency. Both the finite volume and finite difference methods are in summation-by-parts form. Interface conditions coupling the numerical solution across physical interfaces like faults, and computational ones between structured and unstructured meshes, are enforced weakly using the simultaneous-approximation-term technique. The fault interface condition, or friction law, provides a nonlinear relation between fields on the two sides of the fault, and allows for the particle velocity field to be discontinuous across it. Stability is proved by deriving energy estimates; stability, accuracy, and efficiency of the hybrid method are confirmed with several computational experiments. The capabilities of the method are demonstrated by simulating an earthquake rupture propagating along the margins of a volcanic plug.

This paper presents new finite difference schemes for solving the Helmholtz equation in the polar and spherical coordinates. The most important result presented in this study is that the developed difference schemes are pollution free, and their convergence orders are independent of the wave number k. Let h denote the step size, it will be demonstrated that when solving the Helmholtz equation at large wave numbers and considering kh is fixed, the errors of the proposed new schemes decrease as h decreases even when k is increasing and kh > 1.

We develop the dimension-reduced hyperbolic moment method for the Boltzmann equation, to improve solution efficiency using a numerical regularized moment method for problems with low-dimensional macroscopic variables and high-dimensional microscopic variables. In the present work, we deduce the globally hyperbolic moment equations for the dimension-reduced Boltzmann equation based on the Hermite expansion and a globally hyperbolic regularization. The numbers of Maxwell boundary condition required for well-posedness are studied. The numerical scheme is then developed and an improved projection algorithm between two different Hermite expansion spaces is developed. By solving several benchmark problems, we validate the method developed and demonstrate the significant efficiency improvement by dimension-reduction.

A novel Eulerian Gaussian beam method was developed in [8] to compute the Schrödinger equation efficiently in the semiclassical regime. In this paper, we introduce an efficient semi-Eulerian implementation of this method. The new algorithm inherits the essence of the Eulerian Gaussian beam method where the Hessian is computed through the derivatives of the complexified level set functions instead of solving the dynamic ray tracing equation. The difference lies in that, we solve the ray tracing equations to determine the centers of the beams and then compute quantities of interests only around these centers. This yields effectively a local level set implementation, and the beam summation can be carried out on the initial physical space instead of the phase plane. As a consequence, it reduces the computational cost and also avoids the delicate issue of beam summation around the caustics in the Eulerian Gaussian beam method. Moreover, the semi-Eulerian Gaussian beam method can be easily generalized to higher order Gaussian beam methods, which is the topic of the second part of this paper. Several numerical examples are provided to verify the accuracy and efficiency of both the first order and higher order semi-Eulerian methods.

It is well known that conventional edge elements in solving vector Maxwell's eigenvalue equations by the finite element method will lead to the presence of spurious zero eigenvalues. This problem has been addressed for the first order edge element by Kikuchi by the mixed element method. Inspired by this approach, this paper describes a higher order mixed spectral element method (mixed SEM) for the computation of two-dimensional vector eigenvalue problem of Maxwell's equations. It utilizes Gauss-Lobatto-Legendre (GLL) polynomials as the basis functions in the finite-element framework with a weak divergence condition. It is shown that this method can suppress all spurious zero and nonzero modes and has spectral accuracy. A rigorous analysis of the convergence of the mixed SEM is presented, based on the higher order edge element interpolation error estimates, which fully confirms the robustness of our method. Numerical results are given for homogeneous, inhomogeneous, L-shape, coaxial and dual-inner-conductor cavities to verify the merits of the proposed method.

The unsteady flow separation of airfoil with a local flexible structure (LFS) is studied numerically in Lagrangian frames in detail, in order to investigate the nature of its high aerodynamic performance. For such aeroelastic system, the characteristic-based split (CBS) scheme combined with arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) framework is developed firstly for the numerical analysis of unsteady flow, and Galerkin method is used to approach the flexible structure. The local flexible skin of airfoil, which can lead to self-induced oscillations, is considered as unsteady perturbation to the flow. Then, the ensuing high aerodynamic performances and complex unsteady flow separation at low Reynolds number are studied by Lagrangian coherent structures (LCSs). The results show that the LFS has a significant influence on the unsteady flow separation, which is the key point for the lift enhancement. Specifically, the oscillations of the LFS can induce the generations of moving separation and vortex, which can enhance the kinetic energy transport from main flow to the boundary layer. The results could give a deep understand of the dynamics in unsteady flow separation and flow control for the flow over airfoil.

We show the methodology and advantages of asymptotic analysis when applied to lattice Boltzmann outflow treatments. On the one hand, one can analyze outflow algorithms formulated directly in terms of the lattice Boltzmann variables, like the extrapolation method, to find the induced outflow conditions in terms of the Navier-Stokes variables. On the other hand, one can check the consistency and accuracy of lattice Boltzmann outflow treatments to given hydrodynamic outflow conditions like the Neumann or average pressure condition. As example how the gained insight can be used, we propose an improvement of the well known extrapolation method.

Factorization of the incompressible Stokes operator linking pressure and velocity is revisited. The main purpose is to use the inverse of the Stokes operator with a large time step as a preconditioner for Newton and Arnoldi iterations applied to computation of steady three-dimensional flows and study of their stability. It is shown that the Stokes operator can be inversed within an acceptable computational effort. This inverse includes fast direct inverses of several Helmholtz operators and iterative inverse of the pressure matrix. It is shown, additionally, that fast direct solvers can be attractive for the inverse of the Helmholtz and Laplace operators on fine grids and at large Reynolds numbers, as well as for other problems where convergence of iterative methods slows down. Implementation of the Stokes operator inverse to time-stepping-based formulation of the Newton and Arnoldi iterations is discussed.

The paper is concerned with the unconditional stability and error estimates of fully discrete Galerkin-Galerkin FEMs for the equations of incompressible miscible flows in porous media. We prove that the optimal L2 error estimates hold without any time-step (convergence) conditions, while all previous works require certain time-step restrictions. Theoretical analysis is based on a splitting of the error into two parts: the error from the time discretization of the PDEs and the error from the finite element discretization of the corresponding time-discrete PDEs, which was proposed in our previous work [26, 27]. Numerical results for both two and three-dimensional flow models are presented to confirm our theoretical analysis.