Hydrocontest: Computational Fluid Dynamics of hydrofoils

This project is developed within the scope of HydroContest which is an inter-school competition for the design of a racing boat with a high focus on energetic efficiency; the goal is to maximize the speed of the boat under the constraint of a limited power source. Hydrofoils are especially interesting since they offer an important reduction of drag at high speeds while remaining cost efficient. Within the contest, this project aims at delivering a prediction tool for the hydrofoil performance using numerical simulations of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations approximated by the means of the Finite Element method with suitable stabilization techniques, such as the Variational Multiscale Method; we consider P1 Finite Elements with a second order BDF time discretization scheme. An automated meshing script was developed to handle arbitrary foil geometries and angles of attack. The numerical simulations were conducted using the LifeV Finite Element Library in a parallel setting. Satisfactory results have been obtained using this approach for Reynolds numbers up to 1 million.

Simulation of shear-driven flows

Roland Bouffanais

The research work reported in the present dissertation is aimed at the analysis of complex physical phenomena involving instabilities and nonlinearities occurring in fluids through state-of-the-art numerical modeling. Solutions of intricate fluid physics problems are devised in two particularly arduous situations: fluid domains with moving boundaries and the high-Reynolds-number regime dominated by nonlinear convective effects. Shear-driven flows of incompressible Newtonian fluids enclosed in cavities of varying geometries are thoroughly investigated in the two following frameworks: transition with a free surface and confined turbulence. The physical system we consider is made of an incompressible Newtonian fluid filling a bounded, or partially bounded cavity. A series of shear-driven flows are easily generated by setting in motion some part of the container boundary. These driven-cavity flows are not only technologically important, they are of great scientific interest because they display almost all physical fluid phenomena that can possibly occur in incompressible flows, and this in the simplest geometrical settings. Thus corner eddies, secondary flows, longitudinal vortices, complex three-dimensional patterns, chaotic particle motions, nonuniqueness, transition, and turbulence all occur naturally and can be studied in the same geometry. This facilitates the comparison of results from experiments, analysis, and computation over the whole range of Reynolds numbers. The flows under consideration are part of a larger class of confined flows driven by linear or angular momentum gradients. This dissertation reports a detailed study of a novel numerical method developed for the simulation of an unsteady free-surface flow in three-space-dimensions. This method relies on a moving-grid technique to solve the Navier-Stokes equations expressed in the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) kinematics and discretized by the spectral element method. A comprehensive analysis of the continuous and discretized formulations of the general problem in the ALE frame, with nonlinear, non-homogeneous and unsteady boundary conditions is presented. In this dissertation, we first consider in the internal turbulent flow of a fluid enclosed in a bounded cubical cavity driven by the constant translation of its lid. The solution of this flow relied on large-eddy simulations, which served to improve our physical understanding of this complex flow dynamics. Subsequently, a novel subgrid model based on approximate deconvolution methods coupled with a dynamic mixed scale model was devised. The large-eddy simulation of the lid-driven cubical cavity flow based on this novel subgrid model has shown improvements over traditional subgrid-viscosity type of models. Finally a new interpretation of approximate deconvolution models when used with implicit filtering as a way to approximate the projective grid filter was given. This led to the introduction of the grid filter models. Through the use of a newly-developed method of numerical simulation, in this dissertation we solve unsteady flows with a flat and moving free-surface in the transitional regime. These flows are the incompressible flow of a viscous fluid enclosed in a cylindrical container with an open top surface and driven by the steady rotation of the bottom wall. New flow states are investigated based on the fully three-dimensional solution of the Navier-Stokes equations for these free-surface cylindrical swirling flows, without resorting to any symmetry properties unlike all other results available in the literature. To our knowledge, this study delivers the most general available results for this free-surface problem due to its original mathematical treatment. This second part of the dissertation is a basic research task directed at increasing our understanding of the influence of the presence of a free surface on the intricate transitional flow dynamics of shear-driven flows.

EPFL2007

Simulation of benchmark and industrial unsteady compressible turbulent fluid flows

Michele Mossi

Large-eddy simulation (LES) is a very promising technique for the numerical computation of unsteady turbulent flows, and seems to be the perfect tool to simulate the compressible air flow around a high-speed train in a tunnel, providing unsteady results for aerodynamic and aeroacoustic analysis. To look into this possible future application of LES, two major lines of investigation are pursued in this thesis: first, the study of the effective ability of shock-capturing schemes to predict fundamental turbulent phenomena; second, the analysis of the aerodynamic phenomena induced by a high-speed train in a tunnel. The numerical simulation of compressible flows requires the use of shock-capturing schemes. These schemes can be relatively dissipative and mask the subgrid-scale contribution introduced in a large-eddy simulation to account for the unresolved turbulence scales. To estimate their effective dissipation and their ability to resolve turbulence phenomena, shock-capturing schemes widely used for aeronautical applications, from second- to fifth-order space accuracy, are employed here for simulating well-known fundamental flows in subsonic and supersonic regimes. Direct and large-eddy numerical simulations are undertaken for the inviscid and viscous Taylor-Green vortex decay problem, the freely decaying homogeneous and isotropic turbulence, and the fully developed channel flow. For all the turbulent flows investigated, several turbulence statistics are computed and the numerical dissipation of the schemes tested is interpreted in terms of subgrid-scale dissipation in a LES context, yielding an equivalent Smagorinsky or dynamic coefficient. This coefficient is for all schemes of the same order of magnitude as the commonly accepted values in LES for the subgrid-scale term. On the grounds of this analysis and of the comparisons of the turbulence statistics with accurate data obtained in the literature, the addition of explicit subgrid-scale models to the shock-capturing schemes tested is not recommended. It is thus concluded that the use of the LES technique for compressible turbulent flows is not yet suitable for industrial applications. The aerodynamic phenomena generated by a high-speed train travelling in a tunnel are also discussed, their importance on the design of high-speed lies is pointed out, and the analysis tools commonly employed for their study are reviewed. To study numerically the three-dimensional, compressible and turbulent air flow around a high-speed train accelerating in a tunnel, by accounting for the unsteady effects at inlet and outlet boundaries due to the propagation of pressure waves generated at the train departure, new coupling conditions between one-dimensional and three-dimensional domains are developed. These conditions are applied successfully to the numerical simulation of the unsteady wake developing behind two- and three-dimensional vehicles, where the averaged Navier-Stokes equations are solved with the turbulence modelling approach. The influence on the wake of the length of the vehicle tail is also discussed and results of multi-dimensional simulations are compared with one-dimensional data.

EPFL1999

Computational fluid dynamics for naval engineering problems

Nicola Parolini

The subject of this thesis is the numerical simulation of viscous free-surface flows in naval engineering applications. State-of-the-art numerical methods based on the solution of the Navier-Stokes equations are used to predict the flow around different classes of boats. We investigate the role of the Computational Fluid Dynamics in the design of racing boats, such as America's Cup yachts and Olympic class rowing hull. The mathematical models describing the different aspects of the physical problem, as well as the numerical methods adopted for their solution, are introduced and critically discussed. The different phases of the overall numerical simulation procedure, from grid generation through the solution of the flow equations to the post-processing of the results, are described. We present the numerical simulations that have been performed to investigate the role of different design parameters in the conception of America's Cup yachts and we describe how the results obtained from the simulations are integrated into the overall design process. The free-surface flow around an Olympic rowing boat is also considered. We propose a simplified approach to take into account the effect of the boat dynamics in the prediction of the hydrodynamic forces acting on the boat. Based on the results of the simulations, we propose a new design concept and we investigate its potential benefits on the boat performances. One of the aspects that is found to be not completely satisfactory, within the standard numerical methods adopted, is the modelling of complex free-surface flows. The second part of this thesis is devoted to a more theoretical and methodological investigation of this aspect. In particular, we present and analyse a new numerical method based on the level set approach for the solution of two-fluid flows. The numerical scheme based on a finite element discretization is introduced and different critical aspects of its implementation are discussed. In particular, we present and analyse a new technique for the stabilization of the advection equation associated to the level set problem. Moreover, we propose a new reinitialization procedure for the level set function which plays a crucial role in the accuracy of the algorithm. The convergence properties of this procedure are analysed and comparisons with more standard approaches are presented. Finally, the proposed method has been used to solve a variety of test cases concerning time dependent two-fluid viscous flows. The results of the simulation are presented and discussed.

EPFL2004