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The low Mach number approximation of the Navier—Stokes equations is of similar nature to the equations for incompressible flow. A major difference, however, is the appearance of a space‐ and time‐varying density that introduces a supplementary non‐linearity. In order to solve these equations with spectral space discretization, an iterative solution method has been constructed and successfully applied in former work to two‐dimensional natural convection and isobaric combustion with one direction of periodicity. For the extension to other geometries efficiency is an important point, and it is therefore desirable to devise a direct method which would have, in the best case, the same stability properties as the iterative method. The present paper discusses in a systematic way different approaches to this aim. It turns out that direct methods avoiding the diffusive time step limit are possible, indeed. Although we focus for discussion and numerical investigation on natural convection flows, the results carry over for other problems such as variable viscosity flows, isobaric combustion, or non‐homogeneous flows.

This paper presents a spectral multidomain method for solving the Navier‐Stokes equations in the vorticity‐stream function formulation. The algorithm is based on an extensive use of the influence matrix technique and so leads to a direct method without any iterative process. Numerical results concerning the Czochralski melt configuration are reported and compared with spectral monodomain solutions to show the advantage of the domain decomposition for such a problem which solution presents a singular behaviour.

Free and moving boundary problems require the simultaneous solution of unknown field variables and the boundaries of the domains on which these variables are defined. There are many technologically important processes that lead to moving boundary problems associated with fluid surfaces and solid‐fluid boundaries. These include crystal growth, metal alloy and glass solidification, melting and flame propagation. The directional solidification of semi‐conductor crystals by the Bridgman—Stockbarger method^1,2 is a typical example of such a complex process. A numerical model of this growth method must solve the appropriate heat, mass and momentum transfer equations and determine the location of the melt—solid interface. In this work, a Chebyshev pseudospectral collocation method is adapted to the problem of directional solidification. Implementation involves a solution algorithm that combines domain decomposition, a finite‐difference preconditioned conjugate minimum residual method and a Picard type iterative scheme.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a Vortex-In-Cell (VIC) method with the semi-Lagrangian scheme and apply it to the high-Re lid-driven cavity flow.

The VIC method is developed for simulating high Reynolds number incompressible flow. A semi-Lagrangian scheme is incorporated in the convection term to produce unconditional stability, which gets rid of the constraint of the convection Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) condition; the adaptive time step is used to maintain the numerical stability of the diffusion term; and the velocity boundary condition is readily converted to the vorticity formulation to suit discontinuous boundary treatment. The VIC simulation results are compared with those produced by other gird methods reported in open literature studies.

The lid-driven cavity flow is simulated from Re = 100 to 100,000. Similar vortex birth mechanisms are exhibited though, but distinct flow characteristics are revealed. At Re = 100 to 7,500, the cavity flow is confirmed steady. At Re = 10,000, 15,000 and 20,000, the cavity flow is periodical with a primary vortex held spatially at the center. In particular, at Re = 100,000 highly turbulent characteristics is first revealed and an analogous primary vortex is formed but in motion rather than stationary, which is caused by the considerable flow separation at all the boundaries.

In the lid-driven cavity, the flow becomes extremely complex and highly turbulent at Re = 100,000, and the analogous primary vortex structure is observed. Boundary layer separation is observed at all walls, producing small vortices and causing the displacement of the analogous primary vortex. Such a finding original and has not yet been reported by other investigators. It may provide a basis for conducting in-depth studies of the lid-driven cavity flow.

A class of flux‐splitting explicit second‐order finite difference schemes is set up. An ‘optimal’ scheme is defined for 1‐D flows and applied to 2‐D flows with CFL being able to reach 2. The results obtained show that this ‘optimal’ scheme is well adapted to the unsteady flows.

The main purpose of the paper is the validation of different modelling strategies for turbulent swirling flow of an incompressible fluid in an idealized swirl combustor.

Experiments have been performed and computations carried out for a water test rig, for a Reynolds number of 4,600 based on combustor inlet mean axial velocity and diameter. Two cases have been investigated, one low swirl and the other high swirl intensity. Measurements of time‐averaged velocity components and corresponding rms turbulence intensities were measured using laser Doppler anemometer, along radial traverses at different axial locations. In the three‐dimensional, unsteady computations, large eddy simulation (LES) and URANS (Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier‐Stokes Equations or Reynolds Averaged Numerical Simulations) RSMs (Reynolds‐stress models) are basically employed as modelling strategies for turbulence. To model subgrid‐scale turbulence for LES, the models due to Smagorinsky and Voke are used. No‐model LES and coarse‐grid direct numerical simulation computations are also performed for one of the cases.

The predictions are compared with the measurements and reveal that LES provided the best overall accuracy for all of the cases, whereas no significant difference between the Smagorinsky and Voke models are observed for the time‐averaged velocity components.

This paper provides additional valuable information on the performance of various modelling strategies for turbulent swirling flows.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new discretisation scheme, based on equation-coupled approach and high-order five-point integrated radial basis function (IRBF) approximations, for solving the first biharmonic equation, and its applications in fluid dynamics.

The first biharmonic equation, which can be defined in a rectangular or non-rectangular domain, is replaced by two Poisson equations. The field variables are approximated on overlapping local regions of only five grid points, where the IRBF approximations are constructed to include nodal values of not only the field variables but also their second-order derivatives and higher-order ones along the grid lines. In computing the Dirichlet boundary condition for an intermediate variable, the integration constants are used to incorporate the boundary values of the first-order derivative into the boundary IRBF approximation.

These proposed IRBF approximations on the stencil and on the boundary enable the boundary values of the derivative to be exactly imposed, and the IRBF solution to be much more accurate and not influenced much by the RBF width. The error is reduced at a rate that is much greater than four. In fluid dynamics applications, the method is able to capture well the structure of steady highly non-linear fluid flows using relatively coarse grids.

The main contribution of this study lies in the development of an effective high-order five-point stencil based on IRBFs for solving the first biharmonic equation in a coupled set of two Poisson equations. A fast rate of convergence (up to 11) is achieved.

The purpose of this paper is to present two low diffusive convective-pressure flux split finite volume algorithms for solving incompressible flows in artificial compressibility framework.

The present method follows the framework similar to advection upwind splitting method of Liou and Steffen for compressible flows which is used by Vierendeels et al. to solve incompressible flow equations. Instead of discretizing the total inviscid flux using upwind scheme, the inviscid flux is first split into convective and pressure parts, and then discretized the two parts differently. The convective part is discretized using upwind method and the pressure part using central differencing. Since the Vierendeels type scheme may not be able to capture the divergence free velocity field due to the presence of artificial dissipation term, a strategy to progressively withdraw the dissipation with time step is proposed here that can ascertain the divergence free velocity condition to the level of residual error. This approach helps in reducing the amount of numerical dissipation due to upwind discretization, which is evident from the numerical test examples.

Upwind treatment of only the convective part of the inviscid flux terms, instead of the whole inviscid flux term, leads to more accurate solutions even at relatively coarse grids, which is substantiated by numerical test examples.

The method is presently applicable to Cartesian grid.

Although similar formulation is reported by Vierendeels et al., no detailed study of the accuracy is presented. Discretization and solution reconstructions used in the present approach differ from the approach reported by Vierendeels et al. A modification to Vierendeels type scheme is proposed that can help in achieving divergence free velocity condition. Finally the efficacy of the present approach to produce very accurate solutions even on coarse grids is successfully demonstrated using a few benchmark problems.

The purpose of the paper is to obtain finite element method (FEM) solution of steady, laminar, natural convection flow in inclined enclosures in the presence of an oblique magnetic field. The momentum equations include the magnetic effect, and the induced magnetic field due to the motion of the electrically conducting fluid is neglected. Quadratic triangular elements are used to ensure accurate approximation for second order derivatives of stream function appearing in the vorticity equation.

Governing equations in terms of stream function and vorticity are solved by FEM using quadratic triangular elements. Vorticity boundary conditions are obtained through Taylor series expansion of stream function equation by using more interior stream function values to improve the accuracy. Isothermally heated or cooled and/or adiabatic conditions for the temperature are imposed. Results are obtained for Rayleigh number values and Hartmann number values up to 1000000 and 100, respectively.

It is observed that streamlines form a thin boundary layer close to the heated walls as Ha increases. The same effect is seen in the vorticity contours, and isotherms are not affected much. As Ra increases streamlines are deformed moving from the heated walls through cooled walls. Vorticity starts to develop boundary layers close to heated and adjacent walls. Isotherms are pushed towards the sinusoidally heated wall whereas in the case of linearly heated left and bottom walls they expand towards cooled part of the cavity as Ra increases.

The application of FEM with quadratic elements for solving natural convection flow problem under the effect of a magnetic field is new in the sense that the results are obtained for large values of Rayleigh and Hartmann numbers.

We introduce a second‐order accurate time‐marching pressure‐correction algorithm to accommodate weakly‐compressible highly‐viscous liquid flows at low Mach number. As the incompressible limit is approached (Ma ≈ 0), the consistency of the compressible scheme is highlighted in recovering equivalent incompressible solutions. In the viscous‐dominated regime of low Reynolds number (zone of interest), the algorithm treats the viscous part of the equations in a semi‐implicit form. Two discrete representations are proposed to interpolate density: a piecewise‐constant form with gradient recovery and a linear interpolation form, akin to that on pressure. Numerical performance is considered on a number of classical benchmark problems for highly viscous liquid flows to highlight consistency, accuracy and stability properties. Validation bears out the high quality of performance of both compressible flow implementations, at low to vanishing Mach number. Neither linear nor constant density interpolations schemes degrade the second‐order accuracy of the original incompressible fractional‐staged pressure‐correction scheme. The piecewise‐constant interpolation scheme is advocated as a viable method of choice, with its advantages of order retention, yet efficiency in implementation.