Search results

The purpose of this paper is to simulate a macrosegregation solidification benchmark by a meshless diffuse approximate method. The benchmark represents solidification of Al 4.5 wt per cent Cu alloy in a 2D rectangular cavity, cooled at vertical boundaries.

A coupled set of mass, momentum, energy and species equations for columnar solidification is considered. The phase fractions are determined from the lever solidification rule. The meshless diffuse approximate method is structured by weighted least squares method with the second-order monomials for trial functions and Gaussian weight functions. The spatial localization is made by overlapping 13-point subdomains. The time-stepping is performed in an explicit way. The pressure-velocity coupling is performed by the fractional step method. The convection stability is achieved by upstream displacement of the weight function and the evaluation point of the convective operators.

The results show a very good agreement with the classical finite volume method and the meshless local radial basis function collocation method. The simulations are performed on uniform and non-uniform node arrangements and it is shown that the effect of non-uniformity of the node distribution on the final segregation pattern is almost negligible.

The application of the meshless diffuse approximate method to simulation of macrosegregation is performed for the first time. An adaptive upwind scheme is successfully applied to the diffuse approximate method for the first time.

This study aims to simulate the dendritic growth in Stokes flow by iteratively coupling a domain and boundary type meshless method.

A preconditioned phase-field model for dendritic solidification of a pure supercooled melt is solved by the strong-form space-time adaptive approach based on dynamic quadtree domain decomposition. The domain-type space discretisation relies on monomial augmented polyharmonic splines interpolation. The forward Euler scheme is used for time evolution. The boundary-type meshless method solves the Stokes flow around the dendrite based on the collocation of the moving and fixed flow boundaries with the regularised Stokes flow fundamental solution. Both approaches are iteratively coupled at the moving solid–liquid interface. The solution procedure ensures computationally efficient and accurate calculations. The novel approach is numerically implemented for a 2D case.

The solution procedure reflects the advantages of both meshless methods. Domain one is not sensitive to the dendrite orientation and boundary one reduces the dimensionality of the flow field solution. The procedure results agree well with the reference results obtained by the classical numerical methods. Directions for selecting the appropriate free parameters which yield the highest accuracy and computational efficiency are presented.

A combination of boundary- and domain-type meshless methods is used to simulate dendritic solidification with the influence of fluid flow efficiently.

In this study, the authors aim to upgrade their previous developments of the local radial basis function collocation method (LRBFCM) for heat transfer, fluid flow, electromagnetic problems and linear thermoelasticity to dynamic-coupled thermoelasticity problems.

The authors solve a thermoelastic benchmark by considering a linear thermoelastic plate under thermal and pressure shock. Spatial discretization is performed by a local collocation with multi-quadrics augmented by monomials. The implicit Euler formula is used to perform the time stepping. The system of equations obtained from the formula is solved using a Newton–Raphson algorithm with GMRES to iteratively obtain the solution. The LRBFCM solution is compared with the reference finite-element method (FEM) solution and, in one case, with a solution obtained using the meshless local Petrov–Galerkin method.

The performance of the LRBFCM is found to be comparable to the FEM, with some differences near the tip of the shock front. The LRBFCM appears to converge to the mesh-converged solution more smoothly than the FEM. Also, the LRBFCM seems to perform better than the MLPG in the studied case.

The performance of the LRBFCM near the tip of the shock front appears to be suboptimal because it does not capture the shock front as well as the FEM. With the exception of a solution obtained using the meshless local Petrov–Galerkin method, there is no other high-quality reference solution for the considered problem in the literature yet. In most cases, therefore, the authors are able to compare only two mesh-converged solutions obtained by the authors using two different discretization methods. The shock-capturing capabilities of the method should be studied in more detail.

For the first time, the LRBFCM has been applied to problems of coupled thermoelasticity.

Double flow-focusing nozzles (DFFNs) form a coaxial flow of primary liquid with micro-crystalline samples, surrounded by secondary liquid and focusing gas. This paper aims to develop an experimentally validated numerical model and assess the performance of micro-jets from a DFFN as a function of various operating parameters for the water–ethanol–helium system, revealing the jet's stability, diameter, length and velocity.

The physical model is formulated in the mixture-continuum formulation, which includes coupled mass, momentum and species transport equations. The model is numerically formulated within the finite volume method–volume of fluid approach and implemented in OpenFOAM to allow for a non-linear variation of the fluid's material properties as a function of the mixture concentration. The numerical results are compared with the experimental data.

A sensitivity study of jets with Reynolds numbers between 12 and 60, Weber numbers between 4 and 120 and capillary numbers between 0.2 and 2.0 was performed. It was observed that jet diameters and lengths get larger with increased primary and secondary fluid flow rates. Increasing gas flow rates produces thinner, shorter and faster jets. Previously considered pre-mixed and linear mixing models substantially differ from the accurate representation of the water–ethanol mixing dynamics in DFFNs. The authors demonstrated that Jouyban–Acree mixing model fits the experimental data much better.

The mixing of primary and secondary liquids in the jet produced by DFFN is numerically modelled for the first time. This study provides novel insights into mixing dynamics in such micro-jets, which can be used to improve the design of DFFNs.

This study aims to develop an experimentally validated three-dimensional numerical model for predicting different flow patterns produced with a gas dynamic virtual nozzle (GDVN).

The physical model is posed in the mixture formulation and copes with the unsteady, incompressible, isothermal, Newtonian, low turbulent two-phase flow. The computational fluid dynamics numerical solution is based on the half-space finite volume discretisation. The geo-reconstruct volume-of-fluid scheme tracks the interphase boundary between the gas and the liquid. To ensure numerical stability in the transition regime and adequately account for turbulent behaviour, the k-ω shear stress transport turbulence model is used. The model is validated by comparison with the experimental measurements on a vertical, downward-positioned GDVN configuration. Three different combinations of air and water volumetric flow rates have been solved numerically in the range of Reynolds numbers for airflow 1,009–2,596 and water 61–133, respectively, at Weber numbers 1.2–6.2.

The half-space symmetry allows the numerical reconstruction of the dripping, jetting and indication of the whipping mode. The kinetic energy transfer from the gas to the liquid is analysed, and locations with locally increased gas kinetic energy are observed. The calculated jet shapes reasonably well match the experimentally obtained high-speed camera videos.

The model is used for the virtual studies of new GDVN nozzle designs and optimisation of their operation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the developed model numerically reconstructs all three GDVN flow regimes for the first time.

The purpose of this paper is to upgrade our previous developments of Local Radial Basis Function Collocation Method (LRBFCM) for heat transfer, fluid flow and electromagnetic problems to thermoelastic problems and to study its numerical performance with the aim to build a multiphysics meshless computing environment based on LRBFCM.

Linear thermoelastic problems for homogenous isotropic body in two dimensions are considered. The stationary stress equilibrium equation is written in terms of deformation field. The domain and boundary can be discretized with arbitrary positioned nodes where the solution is sought. Each of the nodes has its influence domain, encompassing at least six neighboring nodes. The unknown displacement field is collocated on local influence domain nodes with shape functions that consist of a linear combination of multiquadric radial basis functions and monomials. The boundary conditions are analytically satisfied on the influence domains which contain boundary points. The action of the stationary stress equilibrium equation on the constructed interpolation results in a sparse system of linear equations for solution of the displacement field.

The performance of the method is demonstrated on three numerical examples: bending of a square, thermal expansion of a square and thermal expansion of a thick cylinder. Error is observed to be composed of two contributions, one proportional to a power of internodal spacing and the other to a power of the shape parameter. The latter term is the reason for the observed accuracy saturation, while the former term describes the order of convergence. The explanation of the observed error is given for the smallest number of collocation points (six) used in local domain of influence. The observed error behavior is explained by considering the Taylor series expansion of the interpolant. The method can achieve high accuracy and performs well for the examples considered.

The method can at the present cope with linear thermoelasticity. Other, more complicated material behavior (visco-plasticity for example), will be tackled in one of our future publications.

LRBFCM has been developed for thermoelasticity and its error behavior studied. A robust way of controlling the error was devised from consideration of the condition number. The performance of the method has been demonstrated for a large number of the nodes and on uniform and non-uniform node arrangements.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new local radial basis function collocation method (LRBFCM) for one‐domain solving of the non‐linear convection‐diffusion equation, as it appears in mixture continuum formulation of the energy transport in solid‐liquid phase change systems.

The method is structured on multiquadrics radial basis functions. The collocation is made locally over a set of overlapping domains of influence and the time stepping is performed in an explicit way. Only small systems of linear equations with the dimension of the number of nodes in the domain of influence have to be solved for each node. The method does not require polygonisation (meshing). The solution is found only on a set of nodes.

The computational effort grows roughly linearly with the number of the nodes. Results are compared with the existing steady analytical solutions for one‐dimensional convective‐diffusive problem with and without phase change. Regular and randomly displaced node arrangements have been employed. The solution is compared with the results of the classical finite volume method. Excellent agreement with analytical solution and reference numerical method has been found.

A realistic two‐dimensional non‐linear industrial test associated with direct‐chill, continuously cast aluminium alloy slab is presented.

A new meshless method is presented which is simple, efficient, accurate, and applicable in industrial convective‐diffusive solid‐liquid phase‐change problems with non‐linear material properties.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of the mesh‐free local radial basis function collocation method (RBFCM) in solution of coupled heat transfer and fluid‐flow problems.

The involved temperature, velocity and pressure fields are represented on overlapping five nodded sub‐domains through collocation by using multiquadrics radial basis functions (RBF). The involved first and second derivatives of the fields are calculated from the respective derivatives of the RBFs. The energy and momentum equations are solved through explicit time stepping.

The performance of the method is assessed on the classical two dimensional de Vahl Davis steady natural convection benchmark for Rayleigh numbers from 10³ to 10⁸ and Prandtl number 0.71. The results show good agreement with other methods at a given range.

The pressure‐velocity coupling is calculated iteratively, with pressure correction, predicted from the local mass continuity equation violation. This formulation does not require solution of pressure Poisson or pressure correction Poisson equations and thus much simplifies the previous attempts in the field.

The purpose of this paper is to present the solution of a highly nonlinear fluid dynamics in a low Prandtl number regime, typical for metal‐like materials, as defined in the call for contributions to a numerical benchmark problem for 2D columnar solidification of binary alloys. The solution of such a numerical situation represents the first step towards understanding the instabilities in a more complex case of macrosegregation.

The involved temperature, velocity and pressure fields are represented through the local approximation functions which are used to evaluate the partial differential operators. The temporal discretization is performed through explicit time stepping.

The performance of the method is assessed on the natural convection in a closed rectangular cavity filled with a low Prandtl fluid. Two cases are considered, one with steady state and another with oscillatory solution. It is shown that the proposed solution procedure, despite its simplicity, provides stable and convergent results with excellent computational performance. The results show good agreement with the results of the classical finite volume method and spectral finite element method.

The solution procedure is formulated completely through local computational operations. Besides local numerical method, the pressure velocity is performed locally also, retaining the correct temporal transient.