KosecSarler2012 FINAL Revised
KosecSarler2012 FINAL Revised
KosecSarler2012 FINAL Revised
A O g
(5)
Pr
p
c
= , (6)
A
H
W
O
=
O
, (7)
standing for Rayleigh number, Prandtl number and domain aspect ratio. The ratio between
Rayleigh and Prandtl is often referred as Grashof number, defined as
Ra
Gr=
Pr
T
. (8)
H
O
stands for domain height and
W
O for domain width (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The natural convection benchmark test schematics.
Gregor Kosec and Boidar arler
7
The introduced physical model does not have a closed form solution and in order to solve it a
numerical approach has to be employed. A reference eponymous work in this field is that by
De Vahl Davis (de Vahl Davis, 1983).
3 SOLUTION PROCEDURE
In this paper we use a novel local meshless numerical method with local pressure velocity
coupling. A general idea behind the local meshless methods is the use of local sub clusters of
domain nodes (Figure 2), named local support domains, with local basis functions for the
approximation of fields. With the selected support domain, an approximation function is
introduced as a sum of weighted basis functions
1
( ) ( )
Basis
N
n n
n
u o
=
= +
p p , (9)
where , , and
Basis n n
N u o + stand for the approximation function, the number of basis
functions, the approximation coefficients and the basis functions, respectively. The basis
could be selected arbitrarily (e.g., monomials, radial basis function, etc.), however in this
paper Hardys Multiquadrics (MQs)
( ) ( ) ( )
2
/ 1
n n
n C
o + = + p p p p p , (10)
with
C
o standing for the free shape parameter of the basis function, are used, based on the
results of the study by Franke (Franke, 1982). By taking into account all support domain
nodes and equation (9) the approximation system is obtained. In this paper we use collocation
(the number of support nodes is the same as the number of the basis functions). An arbitrary
spatial differential operation ( ) L can be applied on the approximation function in the
following way
( )
1
( )
Basis
N
n n
n
L L u o
=
= +
p p . (11)
In general, the system (9) has to be solved only when the influence domain topology changes
and therefore the computation can be optimized by computing
1
in a pre-process.
Gregor Kosec and Boidar arler
8
Furthermore, the computation of the coefficients and the evaluation of differential operators
can be combined. All information about the numerical approach and the local nodal topology
can be stored in a predefined vector, which has to be re-evaluated only when the topology of
the nodes changes. The differential operator vector (
L
m
_ ) is introduced as
( )
1
1
( ) ( )
N
L
m nm n
n
L _
=
= + +
p p
(12)
The introduced formalism holds in general and therefore the general notation for partial
differential operator ( ) L is used. However, in the present work, only operators
/ p
c
c c
and
2
V
are employed.
2
2
1
2
1
( ) ( )
N
m nm n
n
p
c
c
_
V
=
c
= + +
c
p p , (13)
/ 1
1
( ) ( )
N
p
m nm n
n
p
c
c
_
c c
=
c
= + +
c
p p , (14)
The structured formulation is convenient since most of the complex and CPU demanding
operations are performed in the pre-process phase. For all inner temporal loop operations only
N floating point operations (FLOPS) are need for evaluation of an arbitrary partial differential
operator. The implementation of the Dirichlet boundary condition is straightforward. In order
to implement Neumann and Robin boundary conditions a special case of interpolation is
needed. In these boundary nodes the function directional derivative instead of the function
value is known and therefore the equation in the interpolation system changes to
1
( ) ( )
Basis
N
BC n n n
n
a b u o
=
c | |
= + + +
|
c
\ .
p p
n
. (15)
In the presented numerical framework the computation of Neumann and Robin boundary
conditions can be simplified through the usage of the differential operator vector. Consider
the Neumann boundary condition
BC
a b
u
u u
c
+ =
cn
, (16)
Gregor Kosec and Boidar arler
9
/
2
0 /
0
Sub
N
BC m m
m
a
a b
u _ u
u
_
c c
=
c c
=
+
n
n
, (17)
where
0
u stands for boundary node. Equation (17) simplifies to Neumann boundary condition
computation if b is set to zero. Such approach makes the Neumann and the Robin boundary
condition computation straightforward and CPU effective, again only N flops are needed to
evaluate it, without any kind of special computational treatment on or near boundaries.
For the temporal discretization we use a two-level explicit time stepping
( ) ( )
0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
D S
t
u u
u u
= V V V +
A
v , (18)
where zero-indexed quantities stand for the values at the initial time, and , D S for general
diffusion coefficient, and source term, respectively. The time step is denoted with t A . The
pressure-velocity coupling is performed through the correction of the intermediate velocity
( )
v
( ) ( )
0 0 0 0 0 0
( )
t
P
A
= + V +V V + V v v v b v v (19)
The equation (19) did not take into account the mass continuity and respective corrections
need to be applied
1
m m +
= + v v v , (20)
1
m m
P P P
+
= + ,
(21)
where , and m v P stand for iteration index, velocity correction and pressure correction,
respectively. By combining the momentum and the mass continuity equations, the pressure
correction Poisson equation emerges
2
m
t
P
A
V = V v . (22)
Gregor Kosec and Boidar arler
10
Instead of solving the global Poisson equation exactly, the pressure correction is guessed from
the divergence of the intermediate velocity.
2
m
P
t
= V
A
v . (23)
The proposed assumption makes solving of the pressure velocity coupling iteration local.
Such an approach is very CPU efficient, as it needs only one computation for each pressure
correction. With the computed pressure correction the pressure and the velocity can be
corrected as
1
m m
P P P ,
+
= + , (24)
where , stands for the relaxation parameter. The iteration is performed until the criterion
V
c V < v is met in all computational nodes. The approach is similar to the artificial
compressibility method (ACM) (Massarotti, et al., 1998, Rahman and Siikonen, 2008) and in
the framework of the Finite Difference Method to the SOLA approach (Hong, 2004).
However, the proposed approach retains the correct time transient which is not the case in
SOLA and ACM approaches. The free fluid flow situations have been tackled by ACM in
(Traivivatana, et al., 2007) and the flow in porous media in (Malan and Lewis, 2011). In the
present paper we are particularly interested in proper transient response of the computations.
The proposed solution procedure is effective from computational point of view as all
numerical operations are completely local. Despite several degrees of freedom over the spatial
discretization, its complexity remains comparable to Finite Difference Method or Finite
Volume Method.
Gregor Kosec and Boidar arler
11
Figure 2: Schematic representation of meshless numerical principle. The differential
operations in a circled node are performed only through the consideration of a local influence
domain.
4 NUMERICAL RESULTS
The results of the benchmark tests are assessed in terms of streamfunction and cavity Nusselt
number, with dimensionless variables, defined as
y
x
x y
W H
p
p
p p = =
O O
, (25)
x W p y H p
x y
v c v c
v v
O O
= = , (26)
C
H C
T T
T
T T
, (27)
2
p H
t t
c
=
O
. (28)
Gregor Kosec and Boidar arler
12
( )
1
0
( )
x y
v dp =
}
p p , (29)
( )
Nu( ) ( ) ( )
x
x
T
v T
p
c
= +
c
p
p p p . (30)
The Nusselt number is computed locally on five nodded influence domains, while the
streamfunction is computed on the one dimensional influence domains representing each row,
where all nodes in the row are used as an influence domain. The streamfunction is set to zero
in south west corner of the domain ( ) 0, 0 0 = . The presented solution procedure is first
verified through the comparison of results against previously published data. The similar
oscillatory low Prandtl number flow is considered, where a tall cavity with height/width
aspect ratio A=4 is filled with Pr=0.0137 (Al4.5%Cu alloy) fluid and simulated at
5
Ra=2.81 10 . Current numerical approach is compared against finite volume method and
Chebishev spectral method (Zalonik, et al., 2005). In present paper the results are presented
in terms of hot side mean Nusselt number and its transformation into frequency domain
(Figure 4). From Figure 4 it can be seen that our present numerical approach shows good
agreement with more standard numerical solutions. In the present work computation is
performed on 40497 uniformly distributed nodes. This case has already been solved in (Divo
and Kassab, 2007, Kosec and arler, 2009). We additionally present the frequency analysis of
the case in the present paper. In Figure 3 the streamlines and the temperature contour plots for
tall cavity test at different times are presented.
Gregor Kosec and Boidar arler
13
Figure 3: Streamlines (stream step 0.2) and temperature contours (contour step 0.1) for tall
cavity test.
Figure 4: Comparison case: Left: hot side mean Nusselt number as a function of
dimensionless time. Right: hot side mean Nusselt number as a function of dimensionless
frequency.
The numerical setup of present cases is presented in Table I together with some characteristic
Gregor Kosec and Boidar arler
14
results of numerical solution. Dimensionless pressure velocity coupling relaxation parameter
is set to the same numeric value as a dimensionless time step in all computations. The
dimensionless pressure velocity coupling criterion
V
c is set to 0.5 for all computations. Free
RBF shape parameter
C
o is set to 90 in all computations. In our computations Case 1 results
in steady state while Case 2 produces oscillatory solution. In Table I the maximum
streamfunction and hot side mean Nusselt numbers in steady state are presented for Case 1.
For Case 2 the values averaged over | |
5, 7 t e are stated. Figure 4 depicts excellent agreement
of the present method with the FEM and spectral method. Solution of Case 1 is depicted in
Figure 5, where the streamlines and the temperature contour plots are plotted on the left
figure. The temporal development of the hot side mean Nusselt number is presented on the
right figure. In Figure 6 the streamlines and the temperature contour plots for Case 2 at
different times during one oscillation are presented. In Figure 7 the hot side mean Nusselt
number temporal development and in Figure 8 its representation in the frequency domain are
presented, where f stands for dimensionless frequency. One can observe from Figure 6 an
almost same maximum flow intensity during oscillations. One can see from Figure 7 that
increase of the number of the computational nodes also increases the amplitude of the
oscillations. Both cases show good convergent behaviour with respect to the number of the
discretization nodes (Figure 9). In Case 2 it is evident that using too coarse nodal distribution
the important part of the solution can be missed as with the coarsest computation the strongest
oscillation is not captured. The oscillation is more pronounced with the increasing number of
the nodes. The oscillations are fully developed after initial transient which ends roughly at
4.5 t .
Table I: Discretization parameters and principal results. Since Case 2 does not exhibit steady
state, a mean value over one oscillation period is given.
Ra Pr A N
D
, dt ,
max
hot side
mean
Nu
Case 1
4
10
0.01 1 437
4
10
4.3358 2.0615
S
t
e
a
d
y
s
t
a
t
e
v
a
l
u
e
s
2597
5
5 10
4.4735 1.9496
10197
5
10
4.5896 1.9523
40397
6
5 10
4.6328 1.9572
160797
6
10
4.6444 1.9584
Case 2
4
5 10
0.01 1 437
5
5 10
6.7741 3.3319
M
e
a
n
v
a
l
u
e
s
2597
5
5 10
7.0020 2.8477
10197
5
10
7.1591 2.7831
40397
6
5 10
7.2786 2.7946
160797
6
10
7.3123 2.7991
Gregor Kosec and Boidar arler
15
Figure 5: Case 1: Left: Steady state streamlines (stream step 0.5) and temperature contours
(contour step 0.1). Right: hot side mean Nusselt number as a function of dimensionless
time.
Gregor Kosec and Boidar arler
16
Figure 6: Case 2: Streamlines (stream step 0.8) and temperature contours (contour step 0.1)
as a function of dimensionless time during one oscillation period.
Gregor Kosec and Boidar arler
17
Figure 7: Case 2: Hot side mean Nusselt number as a function of dimensionless time.
Figure 8: Case 2: Hot side mean Nusselt number as a function of the number of the domain
nodes in frequency domain.
Figure 9: Maximal streamfunction (left) and hot side mean Nusselt number (right) as a
function of the number of domain nodes, where all quantities are normalized to one at the
finest calculation.
Gregor Kosec and Boidar arler
18
The oscillations in Case 2 are result of a balance between the buoyancy and shear stress
forces.
5 CONCLUSIONS
In the present paper we demonstrate the application of extremely simple and intuitive
meshless numerical approach towards solution of transient thermo-fluid problems. The first
two numerical problems from the spectra of recent solidification oriented benchmark call are
treated. The low Prandtl number natural convection in a closed domain is solved with the
proposed numerical solution procedure. Two cases are considered; one with steady state and
another with oscillatory solution. In both situations we show good convergence behaviour.
Until now, no other reference solution exists of the treated cases. In addition, we compare the
present numerical approach on the treated oscillatory case and show excellent agreement with
more common global numerical approaches. We show that in oscillatory case the coarse nodal
distributions miss relevant physical behaviour. In our recent related work we research
application of adaptive nodal distribution in connection with the method used in this paper
(Kosec, 2011). More involved solidification benchmark call tests will be attempted by this
adaptive numerical approach. The future work will also be focused on a parallel
implementation of current solver as we already achieve good speedups with straightforward
OpenMP based parallelization. Further steps will be taken in a GPU and MPI based
parallelization schemes.
Acknowledgment:
The research was funded through Slovenian state research projects J2-4120, P2-0379 and P2-
0095. The Centre of Excellence for Biosensors, Instrumentation and Process Control is an
operation financed by the European Union, European Regional Development Fund and
Republic of Slovenia, Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology. The financial
support is kindly acknowledged.
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