Analysis and numerical simulation of free surface flows

Mathematical and numerical aspects of free surface flows are investigated. On one hand, the mathematical analysis of some free surface flows is considered. A model problem in one space dimension is first investigated. The Burgers equation with diffusion has to be solved on a space interval with one free extremity. This extremity is unknown and moves in time. An ordinary differential equation for the position of the free extremity of the interval is added in order to close the mathematical problem. Local existence in time and uniqueness results are proved for the problem with given domain, then for the free surface problem. A priori and a posteriori error estimates are obtained for the semi-discretization in space. The stability and the convergence of an Eulerian time splitting scheme are investigated. The same methodology is then used to study free surface flows in two space dimensions. The incompressible unsteady Navier-Stokes equations with Neumann boundary conditions on the whole boundary are considered. The whole boundary is assumed to be the free surface. An additional equation is used to describe the moving domain. Local existence in time and uniqueness results are obtained. On the other hand, a model for free surface flows in two and three space dimensions is investigated. The liquid is assumed to be surrounded by a compressible gas. The incompressible unsteady Navier-Stokes equations are assumed to hold in the liquid region. A volume-of-fluid method is used to describe the motion of the liquid domain. The velocity in the gas is disregarded and the pressure is computed by the ideal gas law in each gas bubble trapped by the liquid. A numbering algorithm is presented to recognize the bubbles of gas. Gas pressure is applied as a normal force on the liquid-gas interface. Surface tension effects are also taken into account for the simulation of bubbles or droplets flows. A method for the computation of the curvature is presented. Convergence and accuracy of the approximation of the curvature are discussed. A time splitting scheme is used to decouple the various physical phenomena. Numerical simulations are made in the frame of mould filling to show that the influence of gas on the free surface cannot be neglected. Curvature-driven flows are also considered.

Numerical simulation of free surface incompressible liquid flows surrounded by compressible gas

Alexandre Caboussat, Marco Picasso, Jacques Rappaz

A numerical model for the three-dimensional simulation of liquid-gas flows with free surfaces is presented. The incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are assumed to hold in the liquid domain. In the gas domain, the velocity is disregarded, the pressure is supposed to be constant in each connected component of the gas domain and follows the ideal gas law. The gas pressure is imposed as a normal force on the liquid-gas interface. An implicit splitting scheme is used to decouple the physical phenomena. Given the gas pressure on the interface, the method described in [J. Comput Phys. 155 (1999) 439; Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 42(7) (2003) 697] is used to track the liquid domain and to compute the velocity and pressure fields in the liquid. Then the connected components of the gas domain are found using an original numbering algorithm. Finally, the gas pressure is updated from the ideal gas law in each connected component of gas. The implementation is validated in the frame of mould filling. Numerical results in two and three space dimensions show that the effect of pressure in the bubbles of gas trapped by the liquid cannot be neglected. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2005

Analysis of a geometrical multiscale blood flow model based on the coupling of ODEs and hyperbolic PDEs

Alfio Quarteroni

For the numerical simulation of the circulatory system, geometrical multiscale models based on the coupling of systems of differential equations with different spatial dimensions are becoming common practice. In this paper we address the mathematical analysis of a coupled multiscale system involving a zero-dimensional (0D) model, describing the global characteristics of the circulatory system, and a one-dimensional (1D) model giving the pressure propagation along a straight vessel. We provide a local-in-time existence and uniqueness of classical solutions for this coupled problem. To this purpose we reformulate the original problem in a general abstract framework by splitting it into subproblems (the 0D system of ODEs and the 1D hyperbolic system of PDEs); then we use fixed-point techniques. The abstract result is then applied to the original blood flow case under very realistic hypotheses on the data.

2005

Numerical simulation of free surface flows

Vincent Maronnier, Marco Picasso, Jacques Rappaz

A numerical model is presented for the simulation of complex fluid flows with free surfaces. The unknowns are the velocity and pressure fields in the liquid region, together with a function defining the volume fraction of liquid. Although the mathematical formulation of the model is similar to the volume of fluid (VOF) method, the numerical schemes used to solve the problem are different. A splitting method is used for the time discretization. At each time step, two advection problems and a generalized Stokes problem are to be solved. Two different grids are used for the space discretization. The two advection problems are solved on a fixed, structured grid made out of small rectangular cells, using a forward characteristic method. The generalized Stokes problem is solved using a finite element method on a fixed, unstructured mesh. Numerical results are presented for several test cases: the filling of an S-shaped channel, the filling of a disk with core, the broken dam in a confined domain. (C) 1999 Academic Press.

1999